The president framed the election as a choice between a candidate devoted to upholding American ideals and a chaos agent willing to discard them for his personal benefit.

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.”

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      • @JustARaccoon
        28•1 year ago

        He said that on twitter, while advocating for insurrection in a live speech. If he cared that much he would’ve gone on a public speech too, but that would’ve actually been heard by the target demographic

          • @SoleInvictus
            26•1 year ago

            Classic Trump supporter here, posting sources that contradict their point as supporting their point because, out of eight statements, one weakly suggested peace while the other seven weakly suggested insurrection.

            This is how con men win over the critical thinking challenged crowd.

            • MacN'CheezusEnglish
              -16•1 year ago

              Right, because critical thinking equals defending the majority opinion.

              • @SoleInvictus
                9•1 year ago

                Critical thinking means reading an article with one point that agrees with your stance and seven points that contradict it and realizing it doesn’t actually support your argument.

                Critical thinking means you question what you read, hear, think, write, and say. If you were capable of critical thought, you’d have read your previous comment and realized it doesn’t actually address my comment at all. It just makes an unrelated point. But you’re not capable of even primary school level feats of cognition yet you still vote, and people like you are why American democracy is circling the drain. You just. Don’t. Think.

              • @[email protected]
                1•1 year ago

                Bro. You’re in the minority here, and you’ve made bad takes on every subthread. I don’t have the energy to argue with you. You’re on a predominantly leftist social media platform. No one here agrees with you.

          • @JustARaccoon
            21•1 year ago

            Did you read the entire page?

            Those were not his only directions to the crowd, however. In the same speech, he also used the following phrases while encouraging people to head to the Capitol and protest his election loss, according to the transcript and video of the speech:

            • “We will stop the steal.”
            • “We will not let them silence your voices.”
            • “You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
            • “We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing.”
            • “We’re going to try and give [lawmakers] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
            • “We’re going to have to fight much harder.” “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
      • @[email protected]English
        20•1 year ago

        Yeah, seriously, one time he told everyone to remain peaceful. That totally contradicts every other time he almost explicitly called for violence! And certainly, he didn’t want it to happen, because as we all saw he swooped in immediately when they started to attacking the capitol to tell them to stop, instead of disappearing for an hour and a half.

        Stop being such an easily fooled sheep. The proof is in the pudding: his cultists who were in the capitol that day nearly universally said they were there because Trump wanted them to be there. From their own fucking mouths, and you’re still trying to maintain that Trump wasn’t instrumental in making that happen.