Finally, Biden said what needed to be said.  Donald Trump is engaged in a war of lies aimed at subverting American democracy in the service of his endlessly needy ego.  And, while nodding to the ideal of bipartisanship, Biden acknowledged that the party that Trump now controls is not the party it used to be. That’s the right take on bipartisanship–work with the (disgracefully few) Republicans who are willing to stand up for democracy but don’t pretend that the others are better than what they are.

It had to be done.  You don’t refute a lie by ignoring it. In a recent post, I bemoaned the fact that while GOP leaders, from Trump on down, have been lying to their followers, Democratic leaders, from the president on down, had yet to sound the alarm.  I wrote then, “At some point, Democratic leaders, starting with the POTUS, have to tell the country that we are in a fight to save democracy.” Now, Biden has done just that—he has sounded the alarm. Biden’s speech won’t change any minds in the Republican base, but hopefully it will light fire under enough Democrats—leaders and rank and file alike–to power the campaign to save the midterm elections and kill the various election nullification laws being pushed by GOP state legislators.  It may also have had some impact on the perspectives of the remaining relatively moderate and thoughtful minority of Republican voters.  It will be interesting to see what the inevitable polls will show.