 On September 1, US President Joe Biden delivered a speech in Philadelphia where he highlighted the threat posed by what he termed as the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. He said democracy and equality are under assault in the US and painted a picture of the country under threat by these forces. He also gave a call for unity in what sounded like a battle cry against the far right. What was the context in which the speech was delivered? Was this also an election event considering the midterms in November where Biden's party seems at a disadvantage? Eugene Perrier of breakthrough news explains. You know, I think when we look at Biden's very much hyped democracy speech, we do have to mainly classify it as an election speech and really it was designed to frame the Republican Party, really to frame the Republican Party as a Trumpist party and to really bring in a lot of his 2020 campaign, which is sort of like whatever you may think about, Me Joe Biden, whatever you may think about us as the Democrats as a party, the Republicans are so extreme. And in the mold of this guy, Trump, who's so extreme that you just cannot support them. You know, he's been using phrases more often like semi fascist and pieces like that. So it's sort of like, it's a combination of the two. On the one hand, it's sort of a narrow campaign speech, which I'll come back to, but it does at the very least, and I think this is why, you know, it was such a note of whether it's such an outcry from Republicans about the speech is it does more or less properly situate the Republican Party where it is, which is in sort of a semi fascist milieu in an anti-democratic space and having a range of positions that are only minoritarian positions that are extremely harmful, you know, not just to working class people, but all oppressed peoples and quite frankly, just about everyone in the country. And I think many Republicans have tried to hide from that. And that's why there is in a lot of ways a disconcerting reality amongst some Republicans about Trump, because he really ripped the mask off as it concerns the broader issue of what the Republican agenda really means. And he sort of supercharged it based on this reality in a way that has brought to the forefront, something that a lot of Republicans don't like, but I do think he had that what Biden was able to do is certainly make it very clear. And I think there's a lot of data points for this, that the Republican Party isn't pushing in an extreme anti-democratic direction. Now, on that token, he didn't speak to the failures of the Democrats, which we can certainly talk to. And I think that was really the core of the speech is that it was about democracy, but he didn't actually address what the Democrats were doing to address the problems he laid out. And then, of course, he laid out a whole range of campaign type things. We did the infrastructure bill. We helped recover from coronavirus. So I think, in a way, he was actually using the true reality of outlining the nature of the Republicans and who they really are for electoral campaigning purposes, but also, of course, since it was for electoral campaigning purposes, leaving to the side, the failure of the Democrats to address, substantively, the crisis of democracy in America and the attack and the assault on democracy. That is, of course, happening in the context of what we've seen on a range of different fronts, no less than the Supreme Court. While Biden was strident against the far right, he had far less to say on how to oppose them. He did highlight what he claimed was some of his legislative achievements. But many observers pointed out that he failed to go all out and address those affected the most by the agenda of the far right Republicans. What has been Biden's and the Democrats own record on such matters? You know, I think the Biden's unwillingness to really engage substantively, substantively with the issue of how to expand, defend democracy in the United States is explicitly because the Democrats have failed in order to do so. I mean, one of the issues, of course, he highlighted in the speech correctly is that there is a very significant assault on the right of people to vote and that the Republicans have by and large seem to have enshrined essentially an anti one person, one vote position. But of course, as Biden failed to note, the Democrats have had the opportunity controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency to amend the anti democratic rules of Congress to address that very issue. But they they failed to amend the rules. And these are the rules Congress makes for itself around the filibuster around the issue of, you know, what can be passed in certain budget rules. All these things they can change that add a deeply democratic cast. So they were unable to pass the bill that was explicitly designed to address these attacks and assaults on voting rights, the We The People Act or even the Watered Down John Lewis Voting Rights Act. They failed to pass that. Biden did not mention abortion one time in the speech. And of course, why would he do that? Because the Democrats have failed to take action on the Women's Health Protection Act, which would have, in fact, defended a woman's right to choose a deeply held democratic right. Biden has failed to address substantively, you know, any of the other issues that are addressing democracy in the social and economic sphere. Of course, he was not able to get his economic agenda that would have addressed income inequality and the distribution of resources. Of course, a major democratic right. I mean, he's saying he's going to put a hundred thousand police officers on the street and strengthen the hand of the state without recognizing the fact that the police in the United States are one of the most deeply anti democratic institutions that exist. So really, the Democrats have shown that in their own reality, they can't protect voting rights. They can't protect a woman's right to choose. They can't substantively expand the welfare state and the distribution of the social good and that they are 100 percent in lockstep with the anti democratic law and order agenda when it comes to quote unquote public safety in the United States. So that in fact, they are not a pro democratic alternative, despite the name of their party. And that really all they're offering is we are not the party that was willing to completely throw overboard the idea of one person, one vote and really any idea of majority rule or democracy. And we're not really that much better than that, but we're certainly not any worse. And so ultimately, this was not highlighted in the speech because it shows that neither major political party is actually standing up for democratic rights. One is actively trying to destroy it. And the other one is at the very least complicit in some of those efforts or at or a wall in terms of actually making them making them happen and making substantive change to expand it. So we're in a situation where Biden was right to highlight that there is a slide away from democracy in this country and a disturbing growth of anti democratic and even fascistic overtones in our society. But his own omission show that there's no major political force, including the Democratic Party that can really address them or it wants to really address them. While campaigning for the 2020 elections, Joe Biden had portrayed himself as a paragon of compromise and bipartisanship. Two years down the line, that promise seems to have vanished. And Biden has taken a far more aggressive tone. But are the Democrats equipped to deal with such a challenge? I think whether or not the Democrats take action on any of these issues was first and foremost dependent on whether or not they can maintain both houses of Congress in the midterms. If they can't, nothing will happen either way because a split Congress with the Democratic president will mean both sides will struggle to get through any of their priorities. So even if something was to pass, it would probably be so milk toast, it wouldn't matter, maybe potentially. You never know. And obviously the tenor and the tone of the struggle in the streets will also determine what happens in the legislatures all around the country. But I think by and large, what we can see is that there is a lot of pressure from the base of people inside of the who vote for the Democratic Party, the oppressed nationalities, the lowest wage workers, the more progressive people for there to be more aggressive actions taken by the Biden administration. So and by Congress, if Democrats are able to maintain their their leadership over both houses of Congress and, of course, the White House, we may see some motion on some of these issues, but it doesn't seem likely to be significant or substantive. And I don't think we'll see anything from the Republicans in terms of wanting to work across the aisle. I mean, that's been, you know, smoke and mirrors by the Biden administration. There are no major bipartisan accomplishments, quite frankly, during the entire Biden administration. And certainly we've seen that the conservative minority amongst Democrats, the Joe Manchin's, the Kristen Sinema's and there are others who are out there in the House, the Stephanie Murphy's, the individuals like that, who have shown that they're willing to black with Republicans to prevent any progress and with no movement on the procedural elements like the filibuster, it'll be very difficult to get a simple majority to make any sort of changes that exist. So I think, you know, right now we're in a situation where it's unlikely we're going to see any substantive change on any of the major crises affecting the people of the United States and affecting the world, which means we're probably in for two years more of just sort of drift from the so-called leaders of the country. And that means drifting in a much more dangerous direction, whether it be on democracy, climate change, civil rights, civil liberties, imperialism and wars abroad or any other issue of note.