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Joe Biden calls the assailants "domestic terrorists"

2021-01-07T22:19:38.435Z


The coup offers the president a reminder of the country that awaits him, but also the hope that his message of unity will catch on in a shocked society


It was a good Wednesday dawning for Joe Biden, with the confirmation that the Democrats will have control of the Senate after victories in the two second rounds of the upper house elections in Georgia held on Tuesday.

In the afternoon, Congress was preparing to definitively clear the way to his presidency by certifying, perhaps with some minor show of interested servility by the usual claque of sycophants, the results of the Electoral College.

In a new sign of the centrist and reconciling tone that Biden wants to give his presidency, he announced the election for attorney general of Justice Merrick Garland, whose nomination to the Supreme Court was blocked in 2016 by Republicans.

The choice of a centrist jurist like Garland did not satisfy the left wing of the Democrats, but it is a statement of their intentions regarding a Justice Department whose reputation has been ruined by the management of Trump and William Barr.

Shortly after noon, however, the day suddenly turned into a bitter reminder of the country that awaits Joe Biden when he arrives at the White House in two weeks.

Just as the Republican Majority Leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, the embodiment of politics understood as a partisan exercise, harshly rejected President Trump's delusional offensive to reverse the election result, giving Biden a premature reinforcement of his promised intention to Building bridges between the two camps, hordes of the president's supporters stormed Congress in an unprecedented attempt to forcibly disrupt the course of democracy.

The entire world was watching, in shock, directly, the staging of the democratic deterioration of a country whose prestige, tarnished by four years of Trump, will be responsible for restoring a 78-year-old political veteran, with slim majorities in both legislative chambers, in between of a fierce health and economic crisis, and whose presidency is considered illegitimate by about half the country.

The coup, combined with Trump's regrettable initial silence from across Pennsylvania Avenue, gave Biden the opportunity to try on the president's suit 14 days before his inauguration.

In a message to the nation, he urged the Republican to go to national television immediately to "fulfill his oath, defend the Constitution and demand the end of this site."

He spoke of "insurrection."

And he insisted again on a message of unity that sounded like science fiction over the images of legislators thrown on the Capitol floor and subdued by hordes of lunatics disguised as warriors.

This Thursday, the veteran Democrat went further and called the assailants "domestic terrorists", even comparing yesterday's police reaction with what he would have carried out if the protesters had been supporters of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

The police, said the president-elect, “made a clear failure to apply justice with the same standard (...) Had they been members of BLM, they would have been treated very, very differently from the mob of criminals who they broke into the Capitol ”.

The victories in Georgia, of which Democrats win the majority in both Houses for the first time in more than 10 years, offer Biden the opportunity to take the initiative.

His team is already working on proposals to send to Congress in the coming weeks, starting with a new stimulus package for the economy, which includes sending direct checks to citizens for $ 2,000, more than triple the amount approved ago. just 10 days.

Other measures are also being finalized, in clean energy, infrastructure, health and education, financed by tax increases for the richest, sending the message that the recovery will be more of a transformation than a mere return to the

status quo

.

In these fast-paced days, the effect of Wednesday's riot on Biden's plans remains to be seen.

As always, the future president will have to look left and right.

The left wing of the Democratic Party is reinforced by the successes in Georgia, to the extent that these confirm a certain will for reform and eliminate excuses to advance a progressive agenda.

But the images of the assault on the Capitol also showed them the wolf's ears.

On the right hand side, the bitter spectacle was the realization of how illegitimate the presidency of Biden is much of the country.

45% of Republican voters, according to a YouGov poll, approve of the assault on Congress (compared to 43% who reject it).

"The scenes of chaos in the heart of the Capitol do not reflect the real America," Biden said in his speech.

But they do constitute a numerically important part of the country, whose strength was demonstrated on Wednesday.

Many Republican congressmen, particularly some radicals now sitting in the lower house, but also a few senators determined to show that they are more moved by personal interest than the general, know that it is those extremists on whom their seats depend.

The display of force from their rank and file may dissuade those legislators from crossing the bridges that Biden claims he wants to build.

But it is also possible that the grim spectacle provokes a reaction of unity that grants the new president a truce to advance a legislative agenda in which urgent measures are accumulated.

Everything will depend on the digestion that representatives and represented make of the images of the horned shaman and company.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-01-07

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