Compare and contrast. The president:
American patriots are committed to the honesty of our elections and the integrity of our glorious Republic. . . . We’re supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our Constitution. . . . We’re gathered together in the heart of our nation’s Capitol for one very, very basic and simple reason, to save our democracy. . . . You’re stronger, you’re smarter. You’ve got more going than anybody, and they try and demean everybody having to do with us, and you’re the real people. You’re the people that built this nation. You’re not the people that tore down our nation. . . .
Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. . . . We’re going to see whether or not we have great and courageous leaders or whether or not we have leaders that should be ashamed of themselves throughout history, throughout eternity, they’ll be ashamed. And you know what? If they do the wrong thing, we should never ever forget that they did. Never forget. We should never ever forget. . . .
It used to be that they’d argue with me, I’d fight. So I’d fight, they’d fight. I’d fight, they’d fight. . . . You’d believe me, you’d believe them. Somebody comes out. They had their point of view, I had my point of view. But you’d have an argument. Now what they do is they go silent. It’s called suppression. And that’s what happens in a communist country. That’s what they do. They suppress. . . . Look, I’m not happy with the Supreme Court. They love to rule against me. . . . Today, for the sake of our democracy, for the sake of our Constitution, and for the sake of our children, we lay out the case for the entire world to hear. . . . This is not just a matter of domestic politics, this is a matter of national security. So today, . . . I’m calling on Congress and the state legislatures to quickly pass sweeping election reforms, and you better do it before we have no country left.
The very future of our nation depends on it. My fellow Americans, we’re facing a defining moment, an inflection point. We must, with one overwhelming unified voice, speak as a country. . . . I speak today near Capitol Hill, near the US Capitol, the citadel of our democracy. . . . We’ll have our difference of opinion, and that’s what it’s supposed to be. But there’s something else at stake; democracy itself. I’m not the only one who sees it. Recent polls have shown that overwhelming majority of Americans believe our democracy is at risk, that our democracy is under threat. They too see that democracy is on the ballot this year and they’re deeply concerned about it. . . .
So today, I appeal to all Americans, regardless of party, to meet this moment of national and generational importance, we must vote knowing what’s at stake, and not just the policy of the moment, but institutions that have held us together as we’ve sought a more perfect union are also at stake. We must vote knowing who we have been, what we’re at risk of becoming. Look, my fellow Americans, the old expression, freedom is not free, it requires constant vigilance. . . . The issue couldn’t be clearer in my view. We, the people, must decide whether we’ll have fair and free elections and every vote counts. We, the people, must decide whether we’re going to sustain a republic where reality is accepted, the law is obeyed, and your vote is truly sacred. . . .
[The party’s] driving force is trying . . . to suppress the right of voters and subvert the electoral system itself. That means denying your right to vote and deciding whether your vote even counts. . . . I want to be very clear, this is not about me, it’s about all of us. . . . This is the struggle we’re now in, a struggle for democracy, a struggle for decency and dignity, a struggle for prosperity and progress, a struggle for the very soul of America itself. . . . In a typical year, we’re often not faced with questions of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put us at risk, but this year we are. . . . Too many people have sacrificed too much for too many years for us to walk away from the American project in democracy. . . . The fate of the nation, the fate of the soul of America lies where it always does, with the people, in your hands, in your heart, in your ballot.
If you heard either of these speeches about how the other side was about to end our democracy and our country, would you think that was a thing that ought to be resisted by force? Can you understand why some of your fellow Americans would? Isn’t that a dangerous sentiment no matter who is selling it?