Biden can't call for unity while denouncing fellow citizens as enemies.
On the menu today: President Biden wants the nation to know two things. First, that “MAGA Republicans” are one of the most dire, menacing, implacable, and destructive threats that American democracy has ever faced. Second, he wants to unite all Americans. That contradiction is like trying to redecorate Independence Hall as a villain’s throne room from Star Wars . . . which is more or less what Biden’s advance team did. Also, the law offers three hard truths about the government documents Trump held at Mar-a-Lago.
Biden’s Contradictions
He really bought into that “Dark Brandon” image, didn’t he?
Last night, President Biden delivered a prime-time address to the country from Independence Hall, warning that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” and then he talked about the importance of national unity and the need to “respect our legitimate political differences.”
One moment, Biden would warn that MAGA Republicans:
promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country. . . . [they’re] determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.
The next moment, Biden would emphasize that, “I’m asking our nation to come together, to unite. . . . We, the people, will not let anyone or anything tear us apart.”
He warned that “MAGA Republicans” are “working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself. . . . 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.”
Then, after warning that “MAGA Republicans” represented this dire and worsening threat and that “equality and democracy are under assault,” Biden further denounced them for being too dark and pessimistic in their vision of America: “MAGA Republicans look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair. They spread fear and lies — lies told for profit and power.”
Every few sentences, Biden contradicted what he’d said a few moments before. If he had delivered this speech about the leaders of China or Russia or Iran or transnational Islamist terrorist groups, last night’s speech would be universally praised as a rousing rallying cry and metaphorical call to arms against a dangerous enemy. But in this speech, the enemy is . . . other American citizens.
Also, he wants to unite the country.
Make no mistake, last night’s speech wasn’t just a denunciation of Trump; Biden mentioned Trump three times. “There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven, and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country,” he said. This was a continuation of the Andrew Cuomo/Kathy Hochul/Charlie Crist argument that it’s not just the opposing candidate who is worthy of contempt, but those who voted for the opposing candidate.
You can’t denounce the political opposition and then, in the same speech, try to emulate Abraham Lincoln, attempting to echo, “We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” You can’t be a divider and a uniter in the same address. Pick one.
Even Politico wrote that the contradictory themes of “unity” and “my opponents are pure evil” were likely to induce whiplash.
I have some vehement disagreements with what Biden characterizes as the MAGA crowd, but until they break the law, they’re fellow citizens who are exercising their God-given First Amendment rights. The Constitution protects your right to think and say whatever you want to say, whether the current president likes it or not. If you break the law, that’s a different story; you deserve to have the book thrown at you. But notice how Biden blurred the line between the maniacs storming the U.S. Capitol building and those who oppose abortion or gay marriage. Kathryn Jean Lopez observed: “If the president actually wanted to unite, he wouldn’t have attacked Americans who believe abortion is the civil-rights issue of our lives.”
And for anyone who doubted that Biden was using a national landmark and military personnel for a partisan campaign rally, toward the end, he urged, “Vote, vote, vote. And if we all do our duty — if we do our duty in 2022 and beyond, then ages still to come will say we — all of us here — we kept the faith.”
The address also featured more of Biden’s traditional blatant contradictions of his own actions and unrealistic promises.
“This is a nation that honors our Constitution. We do not reject it,” Biden said, after choosing just last week to spend between $600 billion and $1 trillion without congressional authorization or appropriation.
The president who pledged to “shut down the virus” and then presided over the testing shortage during the Omicron wave and the ongoing Monkeypox outbreak also promised, “We’re going to end cancer as we know it. Mark my words.”
Oh, and finally, if election deniers and extremists are such a dire threat that the president has to give a prime-time address laying out how severe the danger is, 66 days before Election Day, why did the Democratic Party spend millions to elevate these candidates in GOP primaries?
Redecorating Independence Hall as a Villain’s Lair
The glaring contradiction was clear in the visuals of this speech, taking arguably the single-most important location in the Founding of the United States, Independence Hall, and then lighting it blood red, with two silhouetted silent soldiers flanking the president. Take your pick, Snoke’s throne room from Star Wars, the Red Hall at Seattle’s Central Library — the lighting screamed “red alert from the red states.” Perhaps we should see it as a red flag, or a red herring.
Three Inconvenient Truths on Mar-a-Lago
From the U.S. Code of laws, 44-2203, regarding the management and custody of presidential records:
Through the implementation of records management controls and other necessary actions, the President shall take all such steps as may be necessary to assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of the President’s constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented and that such records are preserved and maintained as Presidential records pursuant to the requirements of this section and other provisions of law. [Emphasis added.]
This means that the president cannot declassify information verbally or through a “standing order.” If he wants to declassify information, the president and his staff must document the decision to do so in writing, with specifics.
As I noted back on August 16, courts have previously ruled that there has to be a legal record of the declassification — a verbal “standing order” doesn’t cut it. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in July 2020 that, “Declassification cannot occur unless designated officials follow specified procedures. Executive order 13,526 established the detailed process through which secret information can be appropriately declassified. . . . Declassification, even by the president, must follow established procedures.”
Executive Order 13526, issued by President Obama on December 29, 2009, lays out detailed and specific procedures for declassifying information, including the creation of a National Declassification Center, and states that, “Prior to public release, all declassified records shall be appropriately marked to reflect their declassification.”
If President Trump had documented the declassification of the papers that he kept at Mar-a-Lago, he would have a slam-dunk legal defense, and this whole controversy would be over by now. The fact that Trump’s lawyers haven’t shown those declassification orders is a de facto admission that they do not exist. Therefore, the documents in Mar-a-Lago were never declassified. Trump’s insisting that they were declassified after the fact does not change that; as a former president, he does not have the authority to retroactively declassify information.
Also note that if you buy into Trump’s argument that the documents in Mar-a-Lago are declassified, all of those documents are now subject to the Freedom of Information Act and must be disclosed to the public.
It doesn’t matter if you feel like President Trump should be able to verbally declassify any document or information he likes. The law says otherwise.
ADDENDUM: Thanks to reader E. S. Graham for his praise of Gathering Five Storms and for the comparison to an adventure writer who is likely less remembered than he deserves to be:
As Geraghty continues his Dangerous Clique series, each is better than the last: better written, tighter, and more intricately plotted. Like the late Alistair Maclean, Geraghty peppers his action with humor. And as with Alistair Maclean’s novels, the jokes are funniest if you’re a fellow-countryman. It also helps if you are reasonably up-to-date with popular culture. But the cultural references are not essential to the plot. Part of what makes the book a great read are the characters, some of whom we have met before and some who we are (one hopes) going to meet again in the future.