The president deftly avoids the trap of surrendering his critique of MAGA lawlessness.
Joe Biden delivers a nationally televised address from the Oval Office of the White House on July 14, 2024.(Erin Schaff-Pool / Getty Images)
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump on Saturday has upturned the political world, not least the reelection campaign of Joe Biden. Trump, empowered now with a dramatic photo showing him defiantly raising his fist after being fired on, has assumed the role of a righteous and perhaps divinely protected victim. In response, could Biden really carry on with his planned strategy of highlighting Trump’s threat to American democracy?
Some of Biden’s political allies were so demoralized they seem to have preemptively surrendered. On Sunday, Axiosquoted a “senior House Democrat” as saying, “We’ve all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez correctly responded to this comment by noting, “If you’re a ‘senior Democrat’ that feels this way, you should absolutely retire and make space for true leadership that refuses to resign themselves to fascism. This kind of leadership is functionally useless to the American people. Retire.”
