Midterm elections: Biden warns US democracy is at risk

The democratic traditions of the United States are under threat, US president Joe Biden has warned just days before crucial midterm elections.

Mr Biden said he wished he could tell the country that the assault on American democracy had ended following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6th last year by supporters of former president Donald Trump in a failed bid to prevent the certification of the presidential election. However, he said he could not do so.

In an address on Wednesday said there was an alarming rise in people condoning political violence or just remaining silent.

Speaking at Union Station in Washington, close to the US Capitol, the president tied the January 6th attack on the building to the violent assault on Paul Pelosi, husband of the speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi last week.

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Mr Pelosi was hit over the head with a hammer in an attack which the district attorney in San Francisco has described as “politically motivated”.

The president said the man who attacked Mr Pelosi broke into his house asking: “Where’s Nancy”. He said these were the very same words used by the mob when they stormed the US Capitol on January 6th.

Mr Biden told voters: “Make no mistake, democracy is on the ballot for all of us.”

[ Man charged with attempted kidnap of Nancy Pelosi ]

Mr Biden blamed Mr Trump, without directly naming him, for the threat to US democracy.

“American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election. He refuses to accept the will of the people. He refuses to accept the fact that he lost. He’s abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the constitution.”

Mr Biden cited as an example Mr Trump’s efforts to pressure a senior official in Georgia to “find” him sufficient votes to win the presidential election in the state. Mr Biden said this gave rise to political violence and intimidation.

He said the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6th had been “whipped up into a frenzy” by Mr Trump repeating over and over again the “big lie” that the election of 2020 had been stolen.

Mr Biden said that that lie had “fuelled the dangerous rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years. This intimidation, this violence against Democrats, Republicans and non-partisan officials just doing their jobs are the consequence of lies told for power and profit, lies of conspiracy and malice, lies repeated over and over to generate a cycle of anger, hate, vitriol and even violence.

“In this moment, we have to confront those lies with the truth. The very future of our nation depends on it.”

The president also warned that the United States was on a “path to chaos” if politicians would not accept the results of elections which they lost.

“As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in United States – for governor, for Congress, for attorney general, for secretary of state – who won’t commit to accepting the results of the elections they’re in.

“This is the path to chaos in United States. It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful. And it’s un-American.

“As I’ve said before, you can’t love your country only when you win.”

The president insisted there was no place for political violence or voter intimidation in the United States whether it was against Democrats or Republicans.

“We must, with an overwhelming voice, stand against political violence and voter intimidation, period. Stand up and speak against it. We don’t settle our differences, United States, with a riot, a mob or a bullet, or a hammer. We settle them peacefully at the ballot box.

“Silence is complicity – to the disturbing rise of voter intimidation, the pernicious tendency to excuse political violence or at least, at least, explain it away,”

“We can’t allow this sentiment to grow. We must confront it head-on now. It has to stop now.”

US republican minority leader in the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy said in response to the speech that the president was “trying to divide and deflect at a time when United States needed to unite”.