Biden’s prudent warning on the threat to democracy posed by GOP extremists | Editorial

President Joe Biden fittingly came to Independence Hall, home of the Liberty Bell, to sound the alarm about the danger to democracy stirred by Donald Trump and his most rabid supporters in the Republican Party. After all, Philadelphia is the birthplace of American democracy. It’s where the Founding Fathers debated and signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution — and warned of demagogues.

Biden made clear he was not singling out all Republicans, but rather the so-called MAGA Republicans who have embraced Trump’s authoritarian ways and claims of rigged elections, which led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Republican leaders criticized Biden for being divisive. But the president was right to call out the anti-democratic words and deeds leading the country astray from its core values.

“MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution,” Biden said in a prime-time speech Thursday. “They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to our pursuit of justice, to the rule of the law, to the very soul of this country.”

Biden’s speech rightly framed the upcoming election as a choice between democracy and autocracy. To be sure, it is impossible to engage in reasoned debates about tax policy, defense spending, education, or health care when a large faction of the GOP promotes lies, conspiracies, and the prospect of civil war. Until Trump and his dangerous ideology are quashed, the country can’t continue the path toward a more perfect union.

» READ MORE: Six takeaways from Biden’s Philly speech slamming MAGA Republicans

Biden is not the only one concerned about our democracy. Recent polls found many Americans fear our democracy could collapse. Leading historians have voiced concern about the rise of totalitarianism around the world and the threat to democracy at home. Last year, more than 100 scholars issued a statement warning of growing attacks on democracy.

The scholars pointed to voting restrictions implemented by Republican-controlled state legislatures in response to Trump’s unfounded claims of fraud during the 2020 election. The GOP-led initiatives “are transforming several states into political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections,” the scholars said.

In the past two years, Republican lawmakers in nearly every state have pushed hundreds of bills restricting mail-in voting, early voting, and voter registration. The National Urban League outlined four tactics GOP lawmakers are using to disenfranchise voters: gerrymandering, voter suppression, misinformation, and intimidation.

The attack on voting rights is an outgrowth of Trump’s “Big Lie” — the baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen. While the Department of Homeland Security called the election “the most secure in American history,” Trump and his allies tried to overturn the election through the courts, the Justice Department, Congress, and at the state level.

» READ MORE: Biden and Trump visits have Pennsylvania elections back in the national spotlight

More than 60 lawsuits filed in state and federal courts were all rejected. William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, said he found no widespread election fraud. Recounts pushed by Trump and his supporters in counties in Wisconsin, Arizona, and Texas and statewide in Georgia also failed to change the outcome.

Biden won and Trump lost. Yet 70% of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was stolen.

Trump and his acolytes remain a threat to democracy. More than 100 election-deniers are on the ballot across the country, including in Pennsylvania, where Doug Mastriano is the Republican candidate for governor. If the election-deniers win, they could undo future elections, including the 2024 presidential election.

Rick Hasen, codirector of the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center at the University of California, Irvine, told NPR that the metastasizing of the “Big Lie” is a grave concern: “This is not the kind of thing I expected to ever worry about in the United States.”

Presidential historian Jon Meacham was more blunt: “[W]e are really in the moment of maximum danger for American democracy.”

Historian Michael Beschloss said threats to American democracy are unfolding on four fronts: the Supreme Court, governor’s offices, state legislatures, and state elections officials. He urged citizens to “vote like your life depends on it — because it might.”

When Trump won in 2016, roughly 40% of eligible voters did not vote. Democracy can’t be taken for granted. Citizens have the power and the responsibility to get engaged to prevent the American Experiment that began in Philadelphia from withering away.