Biden in 'Sprint' for Midterm, May be Difficult to Sway Final Results

Highlighting threats to US democracy a campaign step to shift attention: observer

By GT staff reporters

Nov 04, 2022 12:43 AM 

US division Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

In his final "sprint" for the upcoming midterm elections, US President Joe Biden tried to highlight the threats faced by US democracy in what the US media described as an unscheduled speech on Wednesday local time, yet Chinese observers said that the move is an attempt to shift attention from the real issues that voters are concerned about - which the current administration has no practical solutions of - such as the worsening inflation.

Delivering a speech at Union Station that is blocks from the US Capitol where hundreds of former president Trump's supporters violently stormed on January 6, 2021, Biden began the address briefly focusing on the alleged attack on US House Speaker Nancy's husband, Paul Pelosi, which happened less than a week ago. "American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president… refuses to accept the will of the people," Biden said, accusing Trump of cultivating a lie that has metastasized into a web of conspiracies that has resulted in targeted violence, US media reported. 

Analysts described Biden's Wednesday speech as a "sprint for midterm elections" and while Biden and the Democrats hope to win voters by amplifying threat of opponents and their supporters to US democracy, the recent chaos of US politics once again highlighted the deep division of the two parties and in the US society. 

Biden's speech clearly targets core voters for the upcoming elections and since this summer, Democrats have escalated attacks at certain Republicans as well as Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan. The "tit-for-tat" struggles between Democrats and Republicans are becoming fiercer with the approaching of the midterm elections, which however, may not have too much influence on the final election result, Diao Daming, an associate professor at the Renmin University of China in Beijing, told the Global Times. 

In his speech on Wednesday, Biden said that "Extreme MAGA Republicans" are a minority but the "driving force" of the Republican and their aim to question the legitimacy of past elections is to question elections being held now and the future. 

Republicans soon fired back with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy writing on Twitter that Biden "is trying to divide and deflect at a time when America needs to unite - because he can't talk about his policies that have driven up the cost of living." 

Core issues for midterm elections should still be the domestic economy and people's livelihoods, but talking about the threats to democracy to rally voters is a trick for Democrats to shift public attention, analysts said, pointing out American public's increasing dissatisfaction toward the current administration. 

A poll in October by the American Psychological Association found that a majority of American adults are stressed about rising prices, violence, the political state of the country. 

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced its fourth consecutive three-quarters of a percentage point hike in interest rates to fight against a 40-year-high inflation in the US. However, economists and scholars in the US and from overseas also warned of continuous worse performance of the US economy.

As a leading figure of the Democrats, Biden is making a final push for the midterm elections by delivering the speech. However, such a speech surrounding democracy unveiled that Biden has no courage to face up to domestic messes, including economic issues and problems on crimes - democracy is the fig leaf to cover incompetence of the current administration, Lü Xiang, an expert on international relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. 

The democratic system in the US, including its election system, has had few changes in the past decades, said a Chinese observer, but Biden has hyped the so-called threats to democracy to cover up the real problems that haunt him. 

Since taking office in January 2021, Biden's presidency has been dotted with a slew of fiascos, from the poor handling of COVID-19, to the embarrassing withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan and the recent record-hitting inflation. The resulting disappointment and dissatisfaction of the American public have led to sliding approval ratings. "People previously thought he might be better than his predecessor, and had some expectations over his ability to handle the pandemic, but that turned out not to be the case," said the observer.  

Reuters reported on Tuesday that a poll in the US found 40 percent of Americans approve of Biden's job preference. The approval rating, although a percentage point higher than a week earlier, remains near the lowest levels of his presidency and Biden's unpopularity is helping "drive view that Republicans will control of the House and possibly also the Senate" in the midterm elections. 

Analysts predicted that Democrats will likely lose more than 20 seats in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, which may bring a tough time for Democrats considering their various draft proposals on finance and revenues. Also, republicans would have the power to bring Biden's legislative agenda to a halt if they control even one chamber of Congress.

As the November 8 midterm elections approach, worries about political violence have also increased in the US, especially after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked by an intruder in their home last week and analysts said that if the Jan 6 riots in the Capitol showed the world the crack of US democracy, the increasing chaos in the US politics and messes in the society since that have displayed the institutional dysfunction of the US. 

Former President Donald Trump called the violent attack on Paul Pelosi a "terrible thing" on Sunday before blaming Democratic leadership in San Francisco for the assault — and likening crime rates in liberal-run cities to war-torn Afghanistan, media reported Tuesday.

Diao said that political polarization has made neither of the two parties in the US able to effectively respond to what Americans really care about - such decline of the US political system and its governance capability can never be changed by one midterm elections.