On Thursday, Joe Biden will deliver a primetime speech outside Independence Hall, where the framers of the constitution met 235 years ago. The speech will focus on the 'battle for the soul of the nation' – the fight to protect democracy, according to the White House.
The battle is already under way. A week after FBI agents searched his Florida residence, Donald Trump warned that 'terrible things are going to happen' if the 'temperature' isn't brought down. Yet Trump and his Republican allies are doing all they can to increase the temperature. Senator Lindsey Graham warned of 'riots in the streets' if Trump is prosecuted. Trump has reposted messages from QAnon proponents and 4chan, and online threats against public servants are escalating, including against the judge who approved the Mar-a-Lago search warrant.
How to respond? With bold and unwavering law enforcement. If Trump has broken the law – by attempting a coup, instigating an assault on the US Capitol, or removing top-secret documents – he must be prosecuted. While prosecutions might increase tensions in the short term, failure to uphold the law would be far more damaging, undermining the system of government and inviting further criminality.
It is also important for those who believe in democracy to call out the Republican party's moves toward voter suppression, takeovers of election machinery, ending reproductive rights, book bans, and assaults on LGBTQ people. While today's Republican party does not have its own paramilitary, it outsources violence to fringe groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. With exceptions like Liz Cheney, the party is morphing into an anti-democracy movement.
The essential political choice in America is no longer Democrat or Republican, left or right, liberal or conservative. It is democracy or authoritarian fascism. There can be no compromise. To come down on the side of democracy is patriotic. Democrats must seek common ground with independents and reasonable Republicans, appeal to truth and facts, and expose the authoritarian direction of the Republican party.
Democrats must also take bold action against the threat of big money from corporations and the super-wealthy, which inundates and distorts politics. The two threats – from an authoritarian-fascist Republican party and from ever-larger campaign funding – must be confronted together.
