Joe Biden resorts to divisive politics

It remains to be seen whether Joe Biden’s use of the term “semi-fascism” to describe the beliefs of Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters inflicts similar damage to what Hillary Clinton’s badly misjudged “deplorables” reference did to Democratic Party hopes in 2016. With the congressional mid-term elections 10 weeks away, the US President is doing neither himself nor his party any good by indulging in the polarising politics of division and hate usually seen as Mr Trump’s stock in trade. At his inauguration after the bitterly contested 2020 election, and the devastation wrought by the January 6 rampage by Trump supporters, Mr Biden pledged nine times to heal the nation.

He urged voters to “treat each other with dignity and respect … join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature (to avoid) bitterness and fury”.

Yet at a Democratic rally in Maryland on August 22, Mr Biden used “semi-fascism” to describe Trump followers and the threat he claims they pose to US democracy. On Thursday, he said “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans represent extremes that threaten the very foundation of our republic’’. MAGA forces, he said, are determined to “take this country backward to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, contraception, or to marry who you love’’. The strategy is clear. Buoyed by polls that are reversing and showing Democrats have a chance of not only maintaining control of the US Senate but possibly the House of Representatives, Mr Biden sees keeping Mr Trump front and centre of the mid-term battle as an electoral asset. He wants to out-Trump Mr Trump. And Mr Trump (unsurprisingly) responded, claiming the FBI raid on his home would unleash “a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen”.

Mr Biden’s tactic reflects poorly on him. His ill-judged charge of “semi-fascism” unfairly maligns 74 million Americans who voted for Mr Trump in 2020. It is an insult to Republicans who stood firm after the 2020 election, such as governors and legislators who resisted Mr Trump’s demands to tinker with the Electoral College process. It insults judges appointed by Mr Trump who followed evidence and the law assessing Mr Trump’s untenable election fraud claims, and most of all Mike Pence, who resolutely stood by the constitution in rebuffing Mr Trump’s demands over vote counting. The situation deepens apprehensions after a recent YouGov survey showed 43 per cent of Americans believed the US would face civil war in the next decade.