In the run-up to the midterm elections, President Joe Biden gave not one but two speeches: "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic," he warned, and "we're often not faced with questions whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy, or put us at risk, but this year we are." The response from the centrist Beltway punditry was twofold: Biden is speaking the honest truth, but also, he shouldn't have.
Former Republican commentator Josh Barro wrote a widely shared Substack column arguing that only hardcore Democratic partisans who were already locked in as voters cared about this. For everyone else, he argued, Biden was practically "telling voters that they have already lost their democracy" by arguing that they only had one choice if they wanted to save it.
