Progressives appear to be very happy with President Joe Biden's speech Thursday calling "MAGA Republicans" an "extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic."
"He was just calling out the truth," Vicki Miller, who leads the Philadelphia chapter of the grassroots group Indivisible told The Hill Saturday. "The voters I talk to at the doors here in Pennsylvania, they all see what's happening. If the president had sugarcoated what he'd said, they'd see it as politician-speak. President Biden is just saying what a lot of these voters already know: that everything is on the line."
In remarks delivered in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia Thursday night, Biden lashed out at former Republican President Donald Trump and his "Make America Great Again" supporters, saying that they did not believe in the Constitution, the rule of law or the nation's democracy.
"There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country," Biden said with two U.S. Marine soldiers standing in the background on either side behind him. "And here, in my view, is what is true: MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election. And they're working right now, as I speak, in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself. MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards — backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country."
While Republicans demanded an apology for calling the 74 million or so voters who cast ballots for Trump in 2020 a danger to the nation, Democrats praised the remarks.
"He set the table for the midterms in a way that frames it perfectly for Democrats," Michael Starr Hopkins, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist told The Hill. "Either we defeat Trump and his acolytes, or democracy as we know it is over."
The former president responded in a post on Truth Social, calling the speech "insane."
"Someone should explain to Joe Biden, slowly but passionately, that MAGA means, as powerfully as mere words can get, 'Make America Great Again.' If he doesn't want to make America great again, which through words, action and thought, he doesn't, then he certainly should not be representing the United States of America," Newsweek reported Trump's statement said. "If you look at the words and meaning of the awkward and angry Biden speech tonight, he threatened America, including with the possible use of military force. He must be insane or suffering from late-stage dementia!"
On Friday, Biden told a reporter asking if he considered all 74 million Trump voters a danger to the country that he was not referring to all Trump supporters.
"Come on, look, guys, you keep trying to make that case. I don't consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country," the New York Post reported Biden saying Friday. "I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it is used, refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which they can count votes, that is a threat to democracy."
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