At a campaign fundraiser this week, President Joe Biden reportedly accused currently serving elected Republicans of not even believing in basic democratic principles, meaning the concepts that underpin the handling of government in the United States.
NBC journalist Sahil Kapur shared the remarks on X (formerly Twitter), crediting a White House pool report. “I’ve been a senator since ’72. I’ve served with real racists. I’ve served with Strom Thurmond. I’ve served with all these guys that have set terrible records on race,” Biden reportedly said. “But guess what? These guys are worse. These guys do not believe in basic democratic principles.”
In line with Biden’s remarks, these threats to the functioning of democracy in the United States could be described as specifically racist. After the 2020 presidential election, as former President Donald Trump and his corner challenged and threatened duly documented votes for Biden from across the country, they specifically targeted a slew of areas with substantial non-white populations, from Philadelphia to Atlanta to Detroit. The Black communities in all three are larger than those identified in census terms as “White alone.”
A prominent, avid supporter of pro-Trump ambitions around the 2020 election results, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), is now the Speaker of the House, replacing then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) late last year.
Johnson responded to the president’s reported remarks, accusing Biden of deploying the so-called race card… although the expected Democratic nominee for this year’s presidential election specifically expanded his remarks beyond that area of concern. “Outrageous. The least popular President to seek re-election is now so desperate and so underwater in the polls he’s playing the race card from the bottom of the deck,” Johnson complained.
Polling in the 2020 presidential race, in which Biden is expected to enter a rematch against Donald Trump, has been mixed. Recent data from Quinnipiac University showed a Biden lead nationally, although other survey results have shown Trump prevailing. It’s similar in the individual states potentially critical to electoral college outcomes.
