President Joe Biden delivered a blistering, divisive speech during prime time on September 1^st that had as its theme “the continued battle for the soul of the nation.” Accompanied by marines who were seen standing right behind him and with a blood red backdrop, the president delivered his remarks from what he described as “sacred ground in America: Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written. President Biden defiled that sacred ground with a litany of scurrilous attacks on the seventy-four million plus people who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and have supported his America First policies.

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” President Biden declared. “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.”

President Biden should have looked in the mirror and reflected on the fiery rhetoric of his hate-America progressive Left base before hurling this accusation. His administration has trampled on the Constitution with executive orders that exceed his authority and with its efforts to suppress free speech in the name of fighting “disinformation.” The FBI, acting in coordination with local law enforcement agencies, has been directed by Joe Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland to monitor parents protesting at school board meetings about mask mandates and “woke” school curricula. Parents who strongly voice their concerns that their children are being indoctrinated with critical race theory and gender identity ideology could be subject, in President Biden’s America, to prosecution under domestic terrorism laws.

President Biden charged “MAGA forces” (whom he also referred to as “MAGA Republicans”) with fanning “the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.” The president was building on his reckless accusation a few days prior to his Philadelphia speech in which he compared what he called “extreme MAGA philosophy” to “semi-fascism.”

The nearly half of those Americans voting in the 2020 presidential election who voted for Trump and believed in his America First philosophy must therefore, in Biden’s eyes, be semi-fascists (whatever that is). The president has effectively justified, even if inadvertently, the violent tactics of Antifa, which included attacks against law enforcement officers and insurrections against a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon. After all, Antifa considers its unlawful methods as necessary to combat the rising fascism in this country that President Biden believes is in the “semi” stage right now and represents a growing threat to his notion of U.S. democracy.

The riot at the United States Capitol on January 6th was abominable to be sure and deserving of strong condemnation. Those who broke the law should be held fully accountable for their actions. But President Biden is attempting to tar all supporters of Trump’s America First policies with the violent actions and threats of the tiny minority of far-Right extremists willing to consider using violence to achieve their objectives. It is the classic “guilt by association” playbook used to smear so many innocent people on the other side of the political divide. The late Senator Joe McCarthy made his name with this unscrupulous tactic and was getting away with it until the American people at the time had enough of his reckless demagoguery.

According to the president, political violence is solely the province of Trump supporters. So, he believes, is denying the legitimacy of an elected president.

Perhaps President Biden’s memory is failing him, or he is just in complete denial. The president has ignored the rampant violence by Black Lives Matter supporters and members of Antifa during the multiple riots that swept across major U.S. cities in 2020 in the name of “social justice.” The result was more loss of life and destruction of property than occurred on the single day of January 6th, but President Biden had nothing to say about those leftist riots while he was busy decrying political violence by “MAGA forces.”

The president has made no mention of the would-be assassin who came perilously close to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home with the intent to kill him. Nor has he condemned the acts of arson, destruction of property, and vandalism committed by militant pro-abortion activists against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers across the nation in recent months.

The militants who carried out these violent acts disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Wade and allowing instead the democratically elected legislatures in the states to resolve the contentious abortion policy issues themselves. President Biden helped light the spark with his harsh denunciations of the Supreme Court for issuing an opinion on abortion that he did not like.

“Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated,” President Biden said during his remarks in Philadelphia on September 1^st. “And that’s where MAGA Republicans are today,” he added.

Some Americans do believe that the scales were unfairly tilted in Joe Biden’s favor during the 2020 presidential campaign when FBI agents, working with high-tech social media companies, suppressed the news of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Had more voters known the truth about the incriminating evidence found on Hunter’s laptop regarding the Biden family’s financial ties to China, Russia, and Ukraine before they voted, the outcome of the election might have been different. We will never know.

But, in any event, President Biden seems to have forgotten when the shoe was on the other foot back in the days before and after the 2016 presidential election. Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her Democrat friends in Congress made baseless claims that Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election was a result of the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia. They refused to accept the legitimacy of the election because Hillary was the anointed one who was supposed to win in their opinion. It was the Clinton campaign that paid for a concocted dossier drawn from Russian sources, which politically biased FBI and Justice Department officials used to try and discredit Donald Trump’s campaign and then used to try and bring down the Trump presidency. They failed but at a great cost to the country.

The smear campaign against the many millions of Americans who oppose the progressive Left’s agenda that President Biden has embraced is little more than a smokescreen to divert the American people’s attention away from the Biden administration’s multiple failures. But unrelenting inflation, an impending recession, the open border, surging crime across the country, the politicization of COVID-19, and the weaponization of the FBI and the Justice Department will still be very much on voters’ minds in the midterm elections.

The Biden administration has lied repeatedly about its own record. The lies are too obvious to fool most Americans. President Biden continues to castigate millions of patriotic Americans as villains or dupes for believing that America can be great again with policies that put America first. As Hillary Clinton found out with her “basket of deplorables” epithet, insulting voters is not smart politics. And as president of the United States, Joe Biden is demeaning the office in which he is privileged to serve. He and his leftwing base are the ones poisoning America’s soul and sapping its greatness.