Today is Thursday, September 28, 2023. Amping up the warning that former president Dumpf’s anti-American movement is a serious threat to American democracy, President Joe Biden delivered a significant speech in Arizona where he issued blunt new warnings about an existential threat to U.S. democracy as posed by members of the extreme fringe of the Republican Party, the MAGAt’s, as I call these lunatics. Biden’s comments were the focus of an online CNN article by Kevin Liptak, MJ Lee, Kayla Tausche, and Arlene Saentz entitled “Biden previews 2024 message by warning that Trump’s movement is a threat to American democracy.”

Biden delivered his most serious speech in the radical fringe state of Arizona where all things MAGA have gone down since the tumultuous election of 2020. During his speech, Biden declared, “There’s something dangerous happening in America now.” He was in the Grand Canyon State to also honor his friend, the late Republican Senator John McCain, who was outrageously condemned by the Orange Hemorrhoid even after his death for the sin of being taken hostage during the Vietnam War in which he served. Biden added, “There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: the MAGA movement.”

Not mincing words regarding the harm that MAGA poses to the country, Biden declared, “There’s no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists.” He stated, “Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”

This stark message delivered today by Biden in Arizona was his most forceful attempt at calling out Dumpf’s antidemocratic behavior since the former insurrectionist was criminally charged with crimes related to his attempted overthrow of the 2020 election results. The speech offered a taste of Biden’s forthcoming reelection message, one centered on Dumpf’s own words and actions as threats to the American way of life. Biden said his predecessor was guided not by the Constitution (which he’s never read, believe me!) or decency, but by “vengeance and vindictiveness.”

Even though you and me can’t figure out the Orange Bastard’s huge lead among repugnicans, Biden’s own standing remains mired in low approval ratings, and thus he must sharpen his attacks on his most likely 2024 rival as a danger to democracy – and that’s what he accomplished today. The speech today served as yet another sign that the days of trying to keep Frump at an arm’s length are long gone.

Biden laced into the Orange Menace by name, saying, “Trump says the Constitution gave him the right to do whatever he wants as president. I’ve never heard presidents say that in jest.”

Biden alluded to Frump’s recent suggestion that General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, could be executed and said Republican silence on the comment was “deafening.” In conjunction with the deafening allusion, Biden said this of how democracies die: “We should all remember: Democracies don’t have to die at the end of a rifle. They can die when people are silent, when they fail to stand up.”

The setting of Biden’s frank speech on the state of democracy was Tempe, Arizona, which was a center of Dumpf’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and a state where voters rejected candidates who denied the results two years later. Remember that paragon of repugnican MAGA virtue, Kari Lake, who ran unsuccessfully for governor and was roundly rejected by sane voters. She refused to concede to her opponent, Katie Hobbs, for a very long time until she was forced to.

Talking to this issue, Biden proclaimed, “I believe in free and fair elections and peaceful transfer of power. I believe there’s no place in America – none, none, none – for political violence.”

Many senior Democrats believe once voters come to see the 2024 election as a contest (oh no, not again!) between light (Biden) and very dark (Trump), the stakes will be clearer and the current president’s standing will improve. Let’s pray this does happens.

Even though I heard a chilling analysis made by Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show last night where she and other anchors delivered salient postdebate assessment, which could conceivably explain why people will still vote for the Orange Hemorrhoid in a general election. She was talking to former Republican National Committee chairperson and MSNBC contributor Michael Steele when she postulated her theory, which is scary, and that is MAGA voters are not even interested in politics anymore; they’re only interested in voting for a strongman, in this case, Donald Dumpf, and any appeals to rationality or to Frump’s moral debauchery by voting are just ignored by them. If this assumption about these MAGA voters is true, then we must worry that there aren’t enough of these fascist-loving voters out there who would upend the results of the 2024 election by voting into office an orange-haired autocrat.

At one point in his address, Biden was interrupted by climate activists as he urged the audience to “put partisanship aside, put country first.” A protester stood up and called on Biden to take further action to address fossil fuels.

Biden had an apt retort to the message of the protester, when he said, “I tell you what, if you shush up, I’ll meet with you immediately after this.”

Biden then joked, “Democracy is never easy – as we just demonstrated.”

At another site last week, Biden frankly announced, “Let there be no question: Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy. And I will always defend, protect, and fight for our democracy. That’s why I am running.”

By also honoring the memory of his late friend, Biden hoped to hearken to an era of bipartisanship in Washington that has all but disappeared in recent years. The comparison is amplified, given the current battle over government funding, which appears destined (there are only two days left to reach a deal) to result in a government shutdown by Sunday.

In his eulogy for McCain in the summer of 2018, Biden described his friend as having “lived by a different code – an ancient, antiquated code where honor, courage, integrity, duty were alive.”

Today the MAGA party held its first – and, probably, last – public hearing in an impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden that ran for over 6 agonizing hours. Without beating a dead horse to death here, the hearing went as well as Trump providing honest testimony in one of his many criminal cases. The entire proceeding was a fucking embarrassment for the party that is baselessly trying to impeach the sitting president while a government shutdown looms in just two days. Their own “witnesses” debunked any of the reams of evidence of malfeasance committed allegedly by Biden or his son, Hunter. In general, this was a total waste of time and the American people should be outraged once more by the shenanigans of this MAGA fringe. Enough already!

As I had predicted, the repugnican debate was really atrocious and I’m glad I didn’t waste my time watching it. I saw one clip on the Chris Hayes show where everyone was shouting over each other and the stupid moderators didn’t even intervene when they should have. A total disgrace! I hate to say that Donald Frump was probably smiling to himself over not attending and was smirking over how bad all of the candidates appeared. One meaningless exchange between the candidates yesterday was South Carolina’s Tim Scott sparring with Nikki Haley over curtains. This was absurd beyond measure. These candidates are so unqualified for higher office, it’s not even funny. The debate, as it were, devolved into a Three Stooges plus four slapstick farce, as my good friend “Harold” sent me an appropriate video of one of the three rambunctious comics’ hilarious routines to mark the occasion of the Republican shouting match.

Stay safe and be well.