(Washington) A flamboyant speech on democracy, an indictment against Trump, and after? Joe Biden wants to galvanize the Democratic camp and revive a mired presidency, but he is taking a great political risk, if his promises turn out to be empty.
The 79-year-old Democratic president delivered arguably his strongest speech on Thursday to commemorate the assault on Capitol Hill by rampaging supporters of the former Republican president.
The usually good-natured and down-to-earth Joe Biden had given way to a serious, even gloomy head of state. No more jokes and familiar expressions, make way for a solemn vocabulary.
“I did not seek this fight” against political violence and authoritarian temptations, but “I will not shy away,” said Joe Biden.
“Hit hard”
For the first time since the inauguration, he attacked Donald Trump head-on, without naming him, but accusing “the losing former president” of “putting the knife under the throat of democracy” with his statements, unfounded, on a “rigging” of the last election.
Joe Biden “was in an impossible situation. Either say nothing, and find yourself on the defensive. Either hit hard “to mobilize his camp, but also galvanizing his opponents, comments David Schultz, professor of political science at Hamline University (Minnesota).
Donald Trump like other tenors of the Republican camp also fired red balls Thursday on the president, accused of instrumentalizing the events of January 6, 2021.
But the Democratic president needs to relaunch his mandate. After a rather smooth start, marked by an economic restart and a lull in the COVID-19 pandemic, Joe Biden is mired.
The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has left its mark, Americans are demoralized by a surge in inflation and the surge of the Omicron variant.
Joe Biden’s confidence rating hovers around a meager 43%, a major handicap when you have to deal, like him, with a divided Democratic camp and with a very thin parliamentary majority. The president had to give up on a huge social reform project because of one recalcitrant Democratic senator, Joe Manchin.
So Joe Biden, who is facing mid-term legislative elections in the fall that are traditionally perilous for the majority in place, decided to change course.
For some time now, the White House has been assuring that the urgency is no longer the economy, but the protection of the right to vote.
It is a question of securing by two federal laws one of the great achievements of the civil rights movement: the access of minorities and in particular blacks to the vote, access today threatened by reforms of certain conservative States.
“Too little, too late”
Joe Biden made “a big promise,” Judge David Schultz. The Democrats “have a very small window of fire” to pass these texts, before perhaps, in a few months, to lose control of Congress.
“If he fails, it will be a major blow to his presidency,” said the political scientist. A first procedural vote could take place as early as January 17.
Some civil rights activists have listened with skepticism to the great declarations of the Democratic president, who during his campaign received the support considered decisive from figures of the African-American community.
“Do we think he has good intentions?” Yes […] But he really did not do enough during his year in power for access to the vote, “rather focusing on economic issues, asserts Cliff Albright, co-founder of the Black Voters Matter Fund.
With this organization, he campaigns for electoral participation in Georgia. However, it is precisely in this southern state, emblematic of the fight for the rights of African-Americans, that Joe Biden must go on Tuesday.
“It seems too little, too late. And he uses Georgia as a prop, ”criticized Cliff Albright. If, during his trip, the president “makes a speech without a major announcement” on “voting rights”, “then the fact of coming is at best counterproductive, at worst, almost disrespectful. ”