Contending that laws requiring voters to present a photo ID are racist and discriminatory, President Biden on Tuesday declared the nation is “facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.”
“That’s not hyperbole, since the Civil War,” Biden said in a speech at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.
The president insisted there’s “an unfolding assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote.”
Biden’s handlers say his speech was an opening salvo in an ongoing campaign against laws that Republicans argue are meant to strengthen election integrity.
The Democrats’ chief claim is that laws requiring voters to present photo ID amount to discriminatory “suppression” of the black vote. They are now pushing legislation in the Senate that would gut state voter ID laws across the nation.
However, polls show a substantial majority of black voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote. As WND reported, a Rasmussen survey in March found 69% of likely black voters and 75% overall favor a voter ID requirement. Only 21% were opposed. Also in March, a black freshman congressman who grew up in the Jim Crow South, Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, said the notion that blacks can’t get a photo ID is racist in itself.
See Biden’s remarks:
President Biden says there is “an unfolding assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote.”
“We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole, since the Civil War.” pic.twitter.com/O73hIIdnRg
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 13, 2021
Texas is now the focal point in the election-law battle, with Democratic members of the legislature leaving the state Monday to prevent a quorum in a special session dedicated to passing an election security bill.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott charged in an interview Monday night that Democrats are engaged in a “misinformation campaign.”
He pointed out to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that the Texas bill increases early voting and provides more access. In Biden’s home state of Delaware, the governor pointed out, there is no early voting.
See Abbott’s remarks:
Enough with the misinformation campaign.
Here are the facts:
Texas already has two weeks of early voting, while Biden’s home state of Delaware has 0.
The election integrity bills in the #txlege increase the hours of early voting to provide more access. pic.twitter.com/jsX4rdqsHv
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) July 13, 2021
‘Bullies and merchants of fear’
On Tuesday, Biden stopped short of supporting calls by Democratic activists to eliminate the filibuster for Senate votes related to civil rights issues such as voting, CNN reported. The activists argue the legislation has no chance of passing in the 50-50 Senate, where 60 votes would be needed to move to a final vote.
Biden took aim in his Philadelphia speech at former President Trump and his allies for refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election.
“In America, if you lose, you accept the results,” Biden said. “You follow the Constitution, you try again. You don’t call facts ‘fake’ and then try to bring down the American experiment just because you’re unhappy. That’s not statesmanship. That’s selfishness.”
He accused Republicans of betraying the Constitution.
“Have you no shame?”
Biden said that calling in question the election results is “dark” and “sinister,” refleting “human nature at its worst.”
“Bullies and merchants of fear, peddlers of lies, are threatening the very foundation of our country,” he warned.
Meanwhile, an audit of the 2020 vote is underway in Arizona’s biggest county, Maricopa, and Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania are pushing for one of their own.
President Biden says there is “an unfolding assault taking place in America today, an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote.”
“We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole, since the Civil War.” pic.twitter.com/O73hIIdnRg
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 13, 2021
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