FILE – President Joe Biden in the East Room of the White House, Aug. 10, 2022, in Washington. Biden is set to announce $10,000 federal student loan cancellation on Aug. 24, for many, extend repayment pause for others. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Republicans are outraged — or possibly simply pretending to be outraged — that President Joe Biden has, in recent speeches, warned that “MAGA Republicans” are a threat to democracy and, at one point, called the philosophy fueling Trumpism “semi-fascism.”
But there is no scandal here. Biden was simply calling a thing a thing. In fact, I would prefer that he be even more pointed and not try so hard to dodge the charge that he’s casting the net too widely.
Biden first used the term “semi-fascism” two weeks ago, at a Democratic fundraiser in Maryland, saying: “It’s not just Trump; it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say, something, it’s like semi-fascism.”
Republicans quickly demanded that he apologize for insulting half the electorate. But those Republicans who voted for Donald Trump deserve to be called out for their actions. Trump has consistently exhibited fascist tendencies, as well as espoused racism, misogyny and white nationalism. Republicans supported him, defended him and voted for him. They’ve been actively courting this condemnation.
And yet, ever since the initial brouhaha over his fascism comments, Biden has insisted on walking back his assertion, seemingly determined to distinguish more genteel Republicans from the rest of their party. At a rally in Maryland, shortly after his fundraiser, Biden said: “I respect conservative Republicans. I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”
Personally, I have a very hard time splitting that hair. In 2020, 92% of Republican and Republican-leaning independent voters backed Trump. According to a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, 73% of Republicans still have a favorable opinion of him, and 72% want him to run for reelection in 2024.
The overwhelming majority of Republicans support Trump. The pool of respectable conservatives is shallow, and that’s assuming that they can be neatly defined as those not voting for Trump.
A poll found that a quarter of Republicans were adherents of the internet conspiracy theory QAnon and believe that “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders” and that “a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking operation” control America’s government, media and financial system.
As PolitiFact noted in June, citing a number of polls, roughly 70% of Republicans don’t see Biden as the legitimate winner of the presidency.
Furthermore, a July accounting by FiveThirtyEight found that “halfway through the primary season, we can say definitively that at least 120 election deniers have won their party’s nomination and will be on the ballot in the fall.” Republican voters delivered primary victories to those candidates.
Republicans have a knack for persuading Democrats to pull their punches. It was the same strategy they used against Barack Obama after he said some Americans were “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
He was absolutely correct, but in politics, telling the truth can be a sin.
It was the same strategy Republicans used against Hillary Rodham Clinton after she said: “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
She was absolutely right. She may have even understated the number.
Democrats have to stop falling for the line that calling out the dangers that some voters present to the country is somehow a divisive, offensive, unfair attack on the innocent. No person who voted for Trump or supports him now is above being named and shamed.
Biden doesn’t owe Republicans an apology; they owe the country an apology.
Charles Blow is a New York Times columnist.
Originally published at Charles Blow