President Biden on Friday delivered a ferocious condemnation of Donald J. Trump, his likely 2024 opponent, warning in searing language that the former president had directed an insurrection and would aim to undo the nation’s bedrock democracy if he returned to power.
On the eve of the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Mr. Trump’s supporters, Mr. Biden framed the coming election as a choice between a candidate devoted to upholding America’s centuries-old ideals and a chaos agent willing to discard them for his personal benefit.
“There’s no confusion about who Trump is or what he intends to do,” Mr. Biden warned in a speech at a community college not far from Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, where George Washington commanded troops during the Revolutionary War. Exhorting supporters to prepare to vote this fall, he said: “We all know who Donald Trump is. The question is: Who are we?”
In an intensely personal address that at one point nearly led Mr. Biden to curse Mr. Trump by name, the president compared his rival to foreign autocrats who rule by fiat and lies. He said Mr. Trump had failed the basic test of American leaders, to trust the people to choose their elected officials and abide by their decisions.
“We must be clear,” Mr. Biden said. “Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot.”
I know how we could short circuit the “both sides” arguments. Let’s reform the Democratic primary process into something actually democratic.
Everyone gets to vote on the same day.
Replace “first past the post” with any of the more functional systems for all elected offices.
Let a neutral organization manage debates as an open and consistent process.
The Democratic party has total control over their primary process. Presenting themselves as the “defenders of democracy” while continuing to subvert democracy is a losing strategy, and no amount of complaining about “both sides” arguments will change that.
You realize this would give a huge boost to the “establishment” candidate, right? Primaries are staggered to give lesser known candidates a chance to build up momentum.
The primary isn’t FPTP. For example, in the 2020 NH primary both Sanders and Buttigieg won 9 delegates, and Klobuchar won 6.
The answer is less populism, not more.
What exactly do you think populism is? Are you aware that you are specifically promoting oligarchy?