President Joe Biden warned that “our democracy is under threat” during an evening speech he delivered on November 2^nd at Union Station in Washington, D.C. He painted a dark picture of an America beset by “dark forces…that thirst for power.”

President Biden left no doubt whom he considered to be the “dark forces” posing an existential threat to our democracy. They are the “extreme MAGA Republicans” of course, although the president was vague on what defines “an extreme MAGA Republican.”

Biden chose to engage in abstractions about saving democracy from “dark forces” rather than listen to the American people about their real concerns, even though paying heed to the people’s concerns should be what democracy is all about. These concerns include surging prices for necessities such as gas and groceries, soaring criminal violence that goes unpunished, and floods of illegal immigrants and fentanyl entering the United States.

History has shown that out-of-control inflation and a personal sense of physical insecurity can destabilize a functional system of self-government and possibly pave the way for susceptibility to calls for more authoritarian rule. Hillary Clinton was flat wrong when she said recently about the American people that “I’m not sure they really understand the threats to their way of life.” They do.

President Biden said in his November 2^nd Union Station speech on democracy that “we must, with an overwhelming voice, stand against political violence and voter intimidation.” He added that there is no place in America for such violence and voter intimidation, “whether it’s directed at Democrats or Republicans.” The president’s nice-sounding pronouncement would have been more credible if he had not tried to score cheap political points by exploiting the recent assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul at the Pelosi San Francisco home.

The hammer attack on Paul Pelosi was committed by a reportedly mentally deranged, drug-addicted individual with apparently inconsistent political views who was in the country illegally. Nevertheless, Biden linked this attack to the January 6^th Capitol riot. Biden then traced the blame for the “rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years” to then-President Trump’s “repeating over and over again the Big Lie that the election of 2020 had been stolen.”

Yet the so-called “Big Lie” does not explain the assassination attempt on Justice Brett Kavanaugh near his home last June, nor the assault on New York Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, while he was on stage at a political event last July. The so-called “Big Lie” also does not explain the brutal beating last month of a canvasser for Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, nor the gunshot fired into a family home of a Republican House candidate in North Carolina.

In 2017, long before Trump’s so-called “Big Lie,” a Bernie Sanders supporter came close to shooting then-Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise to death amidst an attempted massacre of Republican members of Congress practicing for a softball game.

Biden had nothing to say about any of these violent attacks by leftists.

The only “enraged mob” the president noted in his speech was the mob that rioted at the U.S. Capitol on January 6^th. As far as President Biden was concerned, the widespread mob violence and property destruction committed by left-wing Black Lives Matter supporters and Antifa during the 2020 summer of riots never happened.

Biden should have done some introspection before accusing others of representing a threat to democracy. For example:

The Biden administration’s collusion with social media platforms to censor alleged “misinformation” is a potential threat to democracy.

Presidential usurpation of legislative powers, such as President Biden’s unilateral cancellation of student debt by executive order, is a potential threat to democracy.

The Biden Department of Justice’s treatment of parents who voice their concerns about their children’s education at public school board meetings as domestic terrorists is a potential threat to democracy.

The Biden administration’s failure to enforce the nation’s immigration laws by opening the border to illegal immigrants is a potential threat to democracy.

President Biden would be well-advised to heed the Biblical verse: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”