Biden’s speech: the “moderate” who presented himself as the “healer” of America speaks as an avenger
After Trump's speech , the demonstration headed for the Capitol. There, it overflowed into the Capitol. We do not know how it happened: the head of security and others with him were discharged, several investigations are underway, others are announced.
A protester was killed by security. Three died of illness. A policeman was shot dead with a fire extinguisher, in the way in which the carabiniere Placanica could have died at the hands of Carlo Giuliani, in Genoa not too many years ago (prompting Massimo D'Alema to speak to Parliament of "Mexican butcher"). Outside the Capitol, but it is not known where, in the van of a participant in the demonstration, later found in possession of a 9mm, a semi-automatic weapon and several Molotov cocktails were found. One sympathizer was in possession of weapons, but in a hotel and had not arrived in town in time for the facts. One participant has a history of murdering his ex-girlfriend's friend years ago. No one was listed as an external provocateur ( Antifa ). The local federal prosecutor proceeds for "unauthorized entry – disorderly conduct – theft of public property", even if he evaluates more serious charges, such as "sedition – insurrection – revolt"; in any case it will continue to formulate charges "for most of the year". By Monday, 90 had been indicted . The director of the FBI described the situation as a "siege". Trump could be prosecuted for "inciting" to commit the aforementioned crimes, but no one knows yet.
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On the right, Luttwack strongly rejects the definition of "insurrection" and "coup d'etat", more weakly that of "direct intimidation to Parliament", to take refuge in an "outlet of accumulated resentment": which is certainly true, but not enough to explain the pressure on "weak Republicans" that Trump explicitly intended to exert. At the center, there is talk of a "crowd mobilized by Trump". On the left, we move from the assault "implicitly" incited by Trump in the Financial Times , to the "Trump-inspired violence" of Politico.com , to the "self-coup" that would have brought the country "to the brink of war civil". The polls show a country split like an apple, between those who judge the facts "a legitimate protest" and those who "an illegal act".
The Democrats speak of an "insurrection" and directly accuse Trump of it: they have well written, in their impeachment proposal , that Trump would be guilty of "inciting an insurrection" for having "reiterated false claims that 'we won this election'" as well as for having “issued statements that encouraged, and predictably led to, an immediately subsequent illegal action on the Capitol. Urged on by President Trump, a crowd illegally violated the Capitol ”.
It is particularly important that, for the Democrats, the insurrectional action also consists in having contested the alleged electoral fraud: they are, simply and invariably, "baseless" , without foundation and having shared the denunciation (121-138 deputies did and 6-7 senators) is, in itself, a shame from which to amend. Those who did, defend themselves by recalling the opinion of their constituents and the past times that it was the Democrats who contested the certification (in 2004 even John Kerry). But the latter do not want to hear: this time it is different, they say, this time there are "millions of Americans who still think that the elections have been stolen" and the risk of new unrest is high.
What the Democrats want is the abjuration. One, Josh Hawley, is considered more guilty than the others, for having first supported, in the Senate, the objections advanced by Trump: he has seen the publisher postpone his own book to be released in June, due to the "role in what it has become a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedoms ”. Democratic colleagues call for his and Ted Cruz's resignations from the Senate; one proposed to expel them (something that, apart from the civil war, has been seen once in 231 years) for having "fostered a violent insurrection against our democracy"; surely they will be hit by a motion of censure. All of them have been suspended from donations from the Marriott hotel chain, from a national health insurance association, from AT&T , Amazon , Dow , American Express , Hallmark : in general, accused of having "voted to undermine our democracy ”, Of wanting to“ subvert the presidential election process ”and the like. Over 6,000 teachers, students and alumni at the schools where the two majored in law (Harvard for Cruz and Yale for Hawley) have requested their removal from the legal profession.
The impeachment will surely be voted on by the lower house on Wednesday, with the intention of banning Trump from any public office. But, for the process to be concluded in the Senate, there would be no time: the outgoing president, a Republican, does not intend to reconvene him before January 19 and the text cannot be voted on before January 20, "an hour after Trump has ceased his office". However, the Democrats would not have the necessary 2/3 of the votes in the Senate; moreover, the "post-office impeachment" is not expressly provided for by the Constitution, it is unprecedented and would represent a journey into the legal unknown. So, in order not to fall back on a trivial motion of censure also by Trump, the Democrats try to convince Vice President Pence to dismiss him, activating the 25th amendment; but the consent of the majority of the government would be needed and it is not clear why Pence would have to expose himself to this point; in any case, he is expected to be audited by Congress, probably mid-week. In the general mess, Pelosi also raised the risk of Trump starting a nuclear war: a ridiculous concern (considering that Trump is the first president in 40 years to not have sparked a conflict) and that it seems to have irritated the military.
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These positions were adopted by Biden, first in a hot speech , in the course of events, in which he pronounced: "it is not a protest, it is an insurrection"; to then assign himself the task of "restoring democracy" and quote a speech by Lincoln, which was splendid but delivered in the second year of the Civil War. Concepts elaborated the next day, January 7, in a second speech that we are going to read.
Biden denounces the "desacralization" of the Capitol, interpreted as "an unprecedented assault on our democracy … an assault on the holiest of American companies: ratify the will of the people and choose the leadership of their government". Trump allegedly was guilty of "inciting a crowd to attack the Capitol, ordering elected representatives of the people of this nation, and even the vice president, to prevent Congress from ratifying the will of the American people, expressed in a free and fair election. just completed. Trying to use a crowd to silence the voices of nearly 160 million Americans ”. Which, we have seen , is not: Trump has invited the crowd to walk to the Capitol (not to occupy it), in order to encourage weak Republicans to stand strong (not to interrupt the session).
Consequently, “what we witnessed yesterday was not dissent, it was not disorder, it was not protest. It was chaos. They weren't protesters, don't you dare call them protesters. They were a rebellious crowd of insurgents, internal terrorists. It's so elementary, so simple ”. Which is logical: if it was an insurrection, whoever perpetrated it is an insurgent.
But that's not enough: “in the last four years we have had a president who has expressed his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, the rule of law in everything he has done. From the beginning it has unleashed an all-out attack on our institutions of our democracy. And yesterday was the culmination of that relentless attack ”. That is, it was an insurgency, whoever perpetrated it is an insurgent and Trump is the leader of the insurgents. The reader will notice that Biden claims to be defending the Constitution, just as Trump claims to be defending the Constitution: it is a war of succession, that is, a struggle in which both sides rely on the same legitimacy. In fact Biden compares Trump, twice, to "autocrats and dictators".
To explain, he cites the hackneyed history of Russiagate and repeats an old gaffe of his own, accusing Trump of posing with a bible held upside down, for which he was even reprized by the New York Times , which is saying something.
He then accuses him of having demanded the support of the Supreme Court, which however refused and therefore Biden praises it lavishly: "the judges he appointed did not carry out his orders, they instead acted with integrity, following the Constitution, supporting the rule of law… The judiciary stood up at the moment during these elections. It did its job. He acted with complete fairness and impartiality, with complete honor and integrity. When history retraces this moment that we have just gone through, I believe it will say that our democracy has survived in large part because of the men and women who represent an independent judiciary in this nation. We have a deep, deep debt of gratitude with them ”. Words he will likely have to repent of, should the Supreme Court ever use such renewed credentials in the future to follow through on its frankly conservative agenda.
Then he goes on to accuse Trumpism: "If yesterday a group of Black Lives Matter ( a group of BLM ) protested, they would have been treated very differently, compared to the mob of thugs that took over 'assault the Capitol ”, where the reader is apparently left to wonder if the BLMs have been treated too badly or the Trumpists too well. But the answer is in the definition: the BLMs are "a group", the Trumpists "a horde". That is, justice is not in balance, but in the inversion: the trumpisti must be treated as BLM, BLM (even when okkupano Portland, Seattle and Kenosha or sakkeggiano parts of New York) received should be treated as they are Trumpists were treated.
Who will take care of it? Well, he, Biden: "the reason the Justice Department was originally formed (it was 1870, we didn't have a Justice Department before, the Cabinet, it was formed in 1870) was to enforce the amendment on civil rights born of the Civil War … To resist the Klan, to resist racism. To tackle internal terrorism ”. As for racism and the KKK, nothing quaestio , but the problem is that Biden has just called the overflowing crowd inside the Capitol as "internal terrorists", so he is saying he will use the Justice Department to persecute his political opponents. It would be better to say political enemies.
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Not bad for a new president who has presented himself as a "healer": we would rather speak of an avenger. True, in 2016, he did not stand out among those who called for the "Resistance" to Trump (as the Republicans were an occupying army or, more precisely, Putin's army): today, evidently, he has changed his mind.
It would be tempting to attribute this turn to the desire to split the Republican Party, but the radical nature of the new positions he took does not recommend such an interpretation. Indeed, the first decisive factor must have been the victory in the Senate in Georgia, which gave him a majority in the two chambers and, therefore, the political obligation to proceed by compacting his party: including the left wing. The second is the strength of the Trumpist wing of the opposition, such as to cancel the hopes of conducting a bipartisan policy. The third decisive factor are the Social Networks , as we will see in the next article; not to mention the press, which embraced the thesis of the "insurrection" like Pinocchio with the Cat and the Fox.
Biden, the "moderate", seems to be at the head of a coalition drunk with victory and determined to exploit the opportunity of the Capitol crime to politically wipe out its enemies.
The post Biden's speech: the "moderate" who presented himself as America's "healer" speaks as an avenger appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/il-discorso-di-biden-parla-da-vendicatore-il-moderato-che-si-era-presentato-come-guaritore-dellamerica/ on Wed, 13 Jan 2021 05:03:00 +0000.