President Joe Biden declared war on his political foes last week. His speech “On the Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation” was only slightly mistitled: he was openly declaring a war that had been quietly occurring for some time, moving that war into a more public and dangerous chapter. That speech ramped up the rhetoric in the president and his administration’s continued demonization of the opposition party.
“There is no question that the Republican Party,” led by Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans “is a threat to this country,” Biden said. MSNBC contributor Eugene Robinson called the speech a “wartime address.” That begs two questions: Is the United States at war? If so, against whom? The answer is yes, albeit in a non-traditional sense. Biden has declared war on a substantial part of the American people.
The president’s speech in Philadelphia made the answer to the second question abundantly clear: MAGA Republicans are extremists who “ threaten the very foundations of our republic,” he said. Abraham Lincoln did not use terms so condemnatory in his “First Inaugural Address,” despite the fact that seven Southern states had already seceded. Lincoln, however, hoped for unity with those states. Biden’s remarks were a continuation of his administration’s attempts to marginalize the opposition party. The previous day, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “the MAGA agenda…is one of the most extreme,” defining extremism as merely disagreeing with majority opinion. To malign the views of a substantial number of people as “extreme” based upon the expression of a mere majority is incredibly dangerous, at least for a republic that seeks to preserve the rights of political minorities. Jean-Pierre was only following the cues of her boss, who called the MAGA philosophy “semi-fascism” the previous week.
The harder question to answer is whether the nation is at war. In the literal sense, the answer is no. There are not red and blue armies exchanging gunfire across the American countryside. But in a broader sense of the word, the answer is less certain. Biden’s own words and actions demand we assess this question. Just two days after repeating his implied threat that citizens would need F-15 fighter jets to oppose the government, Biden took the stage in Philadelphia, flanked by U.S. Marines, in front of a blood-red backdrop, and declared that “equality and democracy are under assault” by MAGA Republicans.
The Biden Administration’s national security apparatus has been acting accordingly. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the Department of Justice, including the national security division and the FBI, to investigate parents at school board meetings who were protesting mask mandates and critical race theory in their childrens’ curriculum. This was done at the behest of a letter by the National School Boards Association asking the federal government to use the Patriot Act, which itself was solicited by the Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona. Since then, whistleblowers have come to Congress from the FBI alleging not only that the FBI created a specific threat tag for such investigations, but also that FBI leaders are pressuring agents into reclassifying cases as “domestic violent extremism” cases, even when unfounded. Given recently leaked FBI documents listing the Betsy Ross flag, the Gadsden Flag, and the Second Amendment as indicators of “domestic extremism,” the FBI may have concocted a basis. The FBI has been working alongside the Department of Homeland Security to combat the “domestic terror” threat – the same DHS who a few months ago shut down its Disinformation Governance Board after public outcry over the clear danger the organization posed to the First Amendment.
We are in a cold civil war, wherein the national security apparatus is being used to suppress political dissent. Consider the whiplash between these lines: “Now America must choose:…To be a nation of hope and unity and optimism, or a nation of fear, division, and of darkness? MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies. But together — together, we can choose a different path.” With that juxtaposition, Biden verbally excised 74 million Americans from the body politic. One does not unite with such people. The only way to unify is to unify against those who “have made their choice,” using federal law enforcement to label all them extremists, and treat them as such. It requires the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia applying the law unequally to sentence nonviolent protestors merely present on Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6 riot to months or years in federal prison, while dropping charges against rioters who forced then-President Donald Trump into the White House bunker, injuring dozens of law enforcement officers, and setting national landmarks aflame. The latter scenario is replayed whenever favored groups riot. Will Antifa heed the call of Biden to oppose “semi-fascist” Republicans, and get off scot-free while doing so?
The day after this speech, Biden appeared to walk back his remarks, saying “I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country.” Yet his official Twitter account continues to say that “MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” His administration continues to stay the course, with or without his approval. Until the FBI, DOJ, and other federal agencies stop investigating and prosecuting Americans of just one political persuasion for the most trivial of alleged crimes, while allowing real crimes like arson, assault, and looting escape unpunished because of ideology, the soul of America will be at war with itself.
