Long before former President Donald J. Trump and his “extreme MAGA Republicans” swept into Washington, DC, on a tide of populist fervor, President Joe Biden was already consumed with fear and loathing of the GOP. Confidantes of the Delaware Democrat tell Politico that “Biden has been worried about rising GOP extremism since before Trump’s election.” During former President George W. Bush’s “War on Terror”? Senator Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential election bid? When Biden and bestie, then-Senator Barack Obama, bested the late Senator John McCain in 2008? Could Biden’s alarm date as far back as former President Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America”? The anonymous advisors don’t say. But, last Thursday, during a televised speech bathed in blood red atmospherics, the president finally uncorked on his political opponents, calling them a “clear and present danger.”
None of the three major news networks — ABC, NBC, and CBS — broadcast the president’s prime time tirade. The Washington Post reports that White House flacks attempted to sell the harangue as “not a speech about a particular politician or even about a particular party.” Unconvinced, NBC broadcast “Law and Order,” instead.
On Monday, in the swing state of Wisconsin, the commander in chief continued to pound the disunity drum, accusing “extreme MAGA Republicans” of boiling with “anger, violence, hate, and division.” Biden and the Democratic Party hope to stoke the political fire in order, they say, to put it out.
Amy Holmes