why Biden's democracy address rang hollow

President Biden’s much anticipated speech about the threat to American democracy didn’t sit well with me. It still doesn’t, more than a week later.

It’s not the content of the speech that bothers me. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic,” the President said. 

I would agree.

“MAGA Republicans look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair,” he went on. “They spread fear and lies. Lies told for profit and power.” 

Again, no beef.

“MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live, not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies. But together, together, we can choose a different path.” 

Once, hearing those words in a primetime presidential address would have excited me. I would have happily live tweeted the speech, cocktail in hand. After all, I ended my first book, How to Lose the Information War, which went to press during President Trump’s first impeachment trial, with a similar plea:

Until our elected officials begin to once again respect the truth, it is up to us—at protests, in the voting booth—to remind them it exists. It would be easy...to check out, to seek entertainment instead of information, and to shirk our civic duties and democratic discourse entirely. But unless we aim to live in an autocracy, it is something we cannot allow. Impeachments are rare; elections are yearly. 

But in the context of my recent personal experience, having been targeted by the very same forces who lie for profit and power, who embrace anger and thrive on chaos, Biden’s speech rang hollow. Just as women in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade were dismayed to be told the only way the administration could do more to protect our right to bodily autonomy was if we waddled our pregnant asses to the voting booth this November, I was looking for something more pithy than a supplication to do my civic duty from an administration that only appeared to be able to fight the antidemocratic groups that upended my life on paper, not in practice. 

Since the 2016 election, it has become clear to me over and over again that while Trump and his ilk are not afraid to loudly say the most outlandish things possible, the Democrats are afraid to simply speak the truth.  

Rather than speaking the truth in 2016 about Russian interference—informing the American people that the intelligence community assessed the Kremlin was attempting to tip the scales in favor of then-candidate Trump—the Obama administration decided to stay mum, fearing they, not Moscow, would be accused of meddling. As the years wore on, the press oscillated between breathless “collusion” coverage and a collective shrug, impugning us for caring about foreign interference because some Russian content had spelling mistakes and therefore could not possibly have affected American voters.* That set the country on the track to the familiar politicization of “Russiagate” that continues today. 

In my own experience, a Democratic congressman once incredulously challenged my assertion that “disinformation was dismantling democracy” during a 2020 Congressional hearing. My research-backed conclusions about the effect of disinformation on voter turnout and women’s political participation somehow sounded like an argument for censorship, ​​though my proposals, and counter-disinformation work more broadly, had nothing to do with suppressing speech. Our democratic infrastructure would take care of it all, he assured me. (On January 6, I wondered what he was thinking as he was sheltering from the violent crowds surging through the Capitol). This year, when the Biden administration had a clear chance to challenge the lies antidemocratic forces were spreading about the Disinformation Governance Board, about me, and about manipulated excerpts from tiny slivers of my prior work, they could not get out of their own way, call the lies by their name, and stand up, both practically and politically, for the truth. 

Even Biden’s speech itself, while historic in content, was a bit of an own goal in execution. Major networks didn’t carry it (instead, they broadcast reruns of Young Sheldon and Law and Order). Much of the post-event focus centered around the rather ominous red lighting behind the President, rather than the content of his speech. Describing the speech the next day, The New York Times wrote about “divergent realities” and that “the two parties agree that American democracy is in danger,” which Jeff Sharlet described as “the Mona Lisa of both sidesism,” a phenomenon that has afflicted the media since Trump announced his candidacy. 

Beyond that, in what was certainly a political calculation meant to throw a life preserver to Republicans who have made clear they are going down with the ship, Biden referred to those undermining democracy as “MAGA Republicans” throughout his speech. That he called out only the MAGA wing of the republican party undermines the utility, significance, and veracity of the remarks. Yes, it is hardcore Trumpists who form the core of the American antidemocratic movement, but they would not survive without those who give them intellectual and political cover. The so-called reasonable Republicans—who dispute the significance of the January 6 insurrection, who refuse to clearly condemn falsehoods about voter fraud, who look silently on as their party and its supporters engage in stochastic terrorism against perceived political enemies, and who have refused, time and again, to distance themselves from a man who has no regard for American national security or those who attend to it—they are the people who can pull the country back from the brink, and those who deserve to be unsparingly rebuked for their inaction.

The President ended his speech imploring Americans to “vote, vote, vote”—a worthy message, of course, and one that seems like it may be heeded, with Democrats' likelihood of keeping control of the Senate in the Midterms increasing. But even if Democratic turnout is high, it will not be thanks to the delayed gumption of this speech. It will be the result of years of Democrats turning a blind eye to the forces that have overturned Roe and placed election deniers on the ballot around the country, pushing the country to the brink and requiring a Hail Mary from voters to pull it back. Whether or not Democrats prevail in November, they need not only to keep speaking the truth‚—loudly, unabashedly—as a matter of habit, but to act on it. No more tiptoeing around foreign threats to our elections. No more backing down to absurd Republican smear campaigns. No more equating violent conspiracies to legitimate democratic grievances. Yes, we need to vote, but they also need to act. 

*I am being a little facetious about the press coverage here; it’s true that some Russian operations were quite silly and bumbling and received media coverage disproportionate to their impact. However, some Russian operations, such as the hack and leak of the Democratic National Committee, certainly had a significant impact on the election discourse.