Biden kickstarts 2024 bid with speech targeting Trump

Three years after the deadly US Capitol attack on January 6, President Joe Biden will try to jumpstart his 2024 campaign on Friday with a dramatic address warning that democracy is at risk from Donald Trump.

In an address close to the famous US independence war site of Valley Forge in Pennsylvania, the 81-year-old Democrat, who is either lagging or tied with Trump in recent surveys, will paint his probable Republican opponent as a menace to the country.

The address was moved up one day, to Saturday, the third anniversary of the Capitol attack by a pro-Trump mob that sought to void Biden’s 2020 election victory, due to an impending winter storm.

The president will visit a church in South Carolina on Monday, where a white supremacist shot and killed nine Black parishioners in 2015. This will be another attempt to further elevate Biden’s candidacy by portraying him as a champion of democracy.

Biden’s election appeal four years ago, in which he claimed to be waging a “battle for the soul of America,” according to campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, was more pertinent than ever.

She released a statement saying, “The threat that Donald Trump posed to American democracy in 2020 has only grown more dire in the years since.”

In light of the January 6 riots, Trump was impeached but found not guilty; the 77-year-old is currently facing a criminal trial on allegations that he attempted to rig the 2020 election.

He is not allowed to run in the presidential primary in the US states of Colorado or Maine since he participated in “insurrection” over the events in the Capitol. Trump has contested the two decisions.

However, January 6 has become a more divisive day in US politics; according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland survey released this week, 25% of respondents think the FBI was behind the incident.

Biden’s first speeches of 2024 will take place in purposefully symbolic settings. The first will take place at a school close to Valley Forge, where the country’s first president, George Washington, reorganized American forces battling their British colonial overlords during 1777-8.

George Washington brought the colonies together at Valley Forge, so that’s why we picked it,” principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks explained.

“After that, he was elected president and established the standard for a peaceful handover of power, something that Republicans and Donald Trump had refused to do.”

The early 2024 drive is a response to Democratic complaints that the Biden campaign has not moved quickly enough.

Biden has failed to convince voters that the economy is improving despite favorable numbers, with Americans saying they are still suffering from high food and housing costs.

Migration across the Mexican border remains a major headache, while there is division in his party over his support for Israel’s war on Hamas, and Congress is blocking his bid for more funds for Ukraine.

Biden’s refusal to mention Trump’s multiple criminal cases, to avoid the appearance of influencing the judiciary, has also deprived him of one of his most potent weapons.

– ‘Horrific’ –

But perhaps Biden’s biggest vulnerability is his age: as America’s oldest-ever president, he has suffered a series of trips and verbal slips.

Biden lags behind Trump in some polls, and also has the worst approval rating of any modern president at this stage in his term of office.

“If the election were held tomorrow, President Biden would lose,” William Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told AFP.

Yet the Pennsylvania and South Carolina speeches show the Biden campaign will now portray the race as a straight choice between him and the twice-impeached former president.

The campaign is already treating Trump as the presumptive challenger despite the fact that the battle for the Republican nomination doesn’t even get underway until the Iowa caucuses on January 15.

Democrats are also targeting Trump on issues such as abortion access and health care.

Biden’s first TV ad of the year warns of an “extremist” threat to democracy, featuring images of the Capitol attack set to dramatic music.

“It was a sight that was horrific,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday.

“The president is going to continue to speak about this and continue to be very vocal about this.”

AFP