Biden’s anti-MAGA midterm message takes shape

President Biden’s midterm message is taking shape around framing November’s elections as a “continued battle for the soul of the nation,” echoing a similar notion that propelled him to the White House in 2020.

But this time, Biden is further sharpening his attacks on former President Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, with some in the GOP already demanding an apology for labeling the former president’s political movement as “semi-fascism.” 

In a speech in Philadelphia on Thursday, his second visit this week to his home state of Pennsylvania, Biden will continue to draw stark contrasts between the country electing Democrats and risking a slide toward autocracy if it chooses Republican majorities in Congress. 

The rhetoric indicates that Biden will not rely solely on his legislative agenda to campaign for Democrats in November, but will also argue that putting Republicans in power poses a real danger to democracy.

“I think that traditional kitchen table issues are likely to remain top of mind for voters, but we are increasingly seeing democratic rights discussed at the kitchen table,” said Eric Schultz, a former spokesperson in the Obama White House.

“There is a very direct line between Republican attacks on abortion rights and Republican attacks on democracy,” Schultz continued. “These threats are hitting home for people in a way we haven’t seen before — particularly for young people and for women, two voting blocs that will likely determine the outcome of the elections. I think Republicans are on the wrong side of history, and it’s looking like they’re also on the wrong side of the electorate.”

Biden has been buoyed by a productive late summer thanks to Congress passing a bipartisan bill to boost semiconductor production, a bipartisan bill to fund care for veterans exposed to burn pits and a $740 billion reconciliation package backed by all 50 Democrats in the Senate that contained major climate, tax and health care priorities for the White House.

A recent small uptick in Biden’s approval rating this month, which still hovers around 40 percent, came after stubbornly high gas prices finally declined late this summer after reaching $5 per gallon this spring.

And Democratic voters appear energized by the Supreme Court striking down the right to an abortion in June, which helped tightened some congressional races that otherwise were solidly Republican.

Biden’s upcoming travel will focus on what Democrats say is a strong record to run on, but the president is also not shying away from framing November’s elections in even more urgent terms to help drum up turnout.

Biden campaigned for the White House in 2020 pledging to “heal the soul of the nation.” That message has retained its relevance heading into the midterms, where Trump-backed candidates who cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election populate ballots across the country at the state and federal level. Trump himself claimed this week that he should be installed as president or that the 2020 election should be redone.

The president is slated to speak Thursday in Philadelphia, the same city where he delivered a speech on voting rights last year, to warn that “the core values of this nation” are at stake, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday. 

“He will talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack and how we will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms and fighting for our democracy,” Jean-Pierre said.

Biden made his starkest comments to date last week during a Democratic National Committee reception in Maryland where he described Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement as “almost like semi-fascism, the way in which it deals.”

On Tuesday, during Biden’s first stop in Pennsylvania this week, he condemned recent GOP attacks on the FBI over its search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. And he invoked the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when a mob of Trump supporters sought to stop the certification of the 2020 election. Several rioters beat and attacked police officers trying to protect the building. One Capitol Police officer died in the aftermath of the violence, and several others were injured.

“Don’t tell me you support law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on the 6th,” Biden said to applause, referring to “MAGA Republican” lawmakers.

Republicans, though, have taken issue with Biden’s remarks, accusing him of hypocrisy given his 2020 campaign pledge to lower the country’s temperature and working across the aisle to help unite Americans after four tumultuous years under Trump.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) on Sunday called Biden’s remarks “insulting” and an attempt to “stir up this anti-Republican sentiment right before the election.”

“And then to call half of America fascists?” Sununu asked. “He owes an apology. That’s not appropriate. That isn’t leadership.”

But Biden allies believe the president’s rhetoric isn’t exaggerated at all and instead accurately portrays the importance of Democrats retaining majorities in November’s elections.

“I think he’s very clear about it, that he’s drawn a comparison to a party that wants to unite us, a party that’s worried about families and what they’re dealing with, and the party that’s still litigating the 2020 election, the party that’s taking away reproductive rights for women, a party that is attacking families and law enforcement and questioning the FBI,” former Biden White House adviser Cedric Richmond said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“And I think the best thing that he can do and what’s appropriate is to draw a contrast between what the two parties stand for,” Richmond added.