Ever Closer to the Melting Point*

*Editor’s note: On March 4, Russia enacted a law that criminalizes public opposition to, or independent news reporting about, the war in Ukraine. The law makes it a crime to call the war a “war” rather than a “special military operation” on social media or in a news article or broadcast. The law is understood to penalize any language that “discredits” Russia’s use of its military in Ukraine, calls for sanctions or protests Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It punishes anyone found to spread “false information about the invasion with up to 15 years in prison.

Democracy in the U.S. is only possible for those who don’t support Donald Trump. His supporters are the enemies of democracy. Enemies of the people, even. Two months before the midterms, Joe Biden continues to raise the stakes, pushing the temperature of the American political field to the melting point.

The type of address to the nation that U.S. presidents deliver during unprecedented hardships for the country (or, more often, wars — the Sept. 11 attacks, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan) suggests that the nation is united. But Biden has it all upside down. Trump’s menace is so great that Biden simply wants to ignore, or even better, eliminate, the 70 million Americans who voted for him.

For his keynote speech about “the continued battle for the soul of the nation,” the president chose a place that is sacred to Americans. Philadelphia was the first capital of the U.S., and its Independence National Historical Park is the cradle of the country’s democracy. Biden’s speech was scheduled for prime time. It took place at Independence Hall, where both the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were adopted. The U.S. tried to support a macho image of Biden, embarking on a crusade against Trump and Trumpism, with two U.S. Marines who stood next to him at attention for the whole 25 minutes, but that didn’t help much.

The emphatically aggressive atmosphere suggested there will be no compromises; Biden, clearing his throat, immediately launched an attack. He openly called out the enemies of the U.S. within the country itself.

“Donald Trump and the MAGA [Make America Great Again] Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden said to a storm of applause from his supporters.

At the same time, it seemed that the “good” Republicans, according to Biden, are purely theoretical: They do exist somewhere, but in reality, their numbers are minuscule. Trumpists everywhere, each and all.

“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,” Biden proclaimed, adding that “they refuse to accept the results of a free election.”

These “results of a free election” are, indeed, what’s most impressive — in the sense of how they were achieved. Half an hour before Biden’s speech, a report of an outrageous case from Michigan appeared on a CNN broadcast.

A vigilant security expert stumbled upon a voting machine for sale on eBay — one of the voting machines that was used during the 2020 election in this state. A man named Ean Hutchison, a 35-year-old Uber driver, who is well versed in technology and has been making money on eBay for a long time, listed the device. He later told reporters that he had purchased the machine online from a Michigan Goodwill store for $7.99 and then sold it on eBay for $1,200.

In the end, it became clear that the “ASID-15V-Z37-B1R touch panel” (this is how the item was listed) was one of the Dominion Voting Systems machines — the system whose operators Trump blamed for digital vote-rigging for Biden during Michigan elections.

The reaction of local authorities is even more curious. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said that, first, the voters should be confident of election security in her state; and second, although the eBay listing for the voting machine in Michigan raises concerns about how these machines are stored, the real threat is what conspiracy theorists can do before elections.

So those who broke the law are not at fault; instead, it’s those who are worried about it and ask questions.

Before Biden’s speech, the White House promised it wouldn’t be political. But the “vote, vote, vote” at the end left no doubts. The swing state of Pennsylvania (where Biden is speaking for the second time this week, by the way) is incredibly important in this sense. Political sentiments there vary greatly.

Even during the broadcast, the noise of sirens and someone’s shouts through a loudspeaker could be heard in the background. The people who, by Biden’s claims, “are destroying America” also came to listen to Biden. They weren’t allowed inside, however, but a loud “F**k Joe Biden!” was definitely heard by millions of Americans.

“I will not stand by and watch — I will not — the will of the American people be overturned by wild conspiracy theories and baseless, evidence-free claims of fraud. I will not stand by and watch elections in this country stolen by people who simply refuse to accept that they lost,” the U.S. president said.

Is it panic or a shrewd electoral move? It’s both.

The raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, which just reeks of a staged masquerade, raised a wave of questions not only from Trumpists, but also from some Democrats. Even left-leaning Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have long since been disappointed in Biden. But without the voices from the left, the Democrats, who almost certainly will lose the House of Representatives, will have a really hard time. One of Biden’s preelection tasks is to spark a new wave of hate toward Trumpists in the hearts of Democrats. That why he needed that “light show” in Philadelphia.

The problem is that both left-leaning and right-leaning Americans have the same concerns in their everyday lives. Both Democrats and Republicans walk the streets where crime is rising. They overpay for groceries and for gas, and they suffer from inflation.

Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called Biden the main divider in the United States, someone who represents the current state of the Democratic Party: their division, their disgust and their animosity toward half of their country. And their neglect of the country’s problems, from which they’re trying to distract their people so cynically.

“Winter is coming. Families are barely able to make ends meet,” McCarthy noted. “Electricity and energy costs — they are consuming household budgets. You know, more than 20 million American households — that’s about one in every six families — have fallen behind on the utility bills.”

Biden, in some sense, also has to “pay the bills.” He has a long history of debt.

More than once, Biden has presented himself as a politician who can unite the “divided United States.” He talked about it during his inaugural speech. We know the events of Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded it — the storming of the Capitol building. But something went wrong along the way.

One and a half years later, a Quinnipiac University poll notes only one matter on which both Democrats and Republicans fully agree.

Sixty-seven percent of them believe that U.S. democracy is in danger. As such, Biden’s presidency, it seems, really has united Americans — in their fear of losing themselves and their country.