The first things I saw in regards to the Battle for the Soul of America speech from last night was the crimson-lit Independence Hall with two Marines standing in the shadows. From an optics perspective, I don't know that the backdrop was the wisest decision. It may have looked cool, but it looked a bit sinister.
I finally listened to the speech this morning.
Positives
He called out the sycophantic portion of the GOP that has chosen to vilify the FBI for doing something that every American believes should be true. The FBI treated a former president as it would regular citizen who is under suspicion of committing a crime while executing a search warrant. Every single one of these sycophantic "conservatives" would be talking about the "heroic" FBI if the warrant was exercised on Hillary Clinton. They all know that is true.
He called out absurd hyperbole from people like Lindsey Graham claiming "riots in the street" will follow from the indictment of Donald Trump and from Ted Cruz, arguing that the IRS new agents will be weaponized against humble middle income GOP Americans.
He did call for a more united country, for the need to be vigilant about voting and keeping election deniers from taking local and state election offices where they could be in positions to perpetrate actual election interference and fraud.
Bad Moves
The decision to refer to hard Trump followers and sycophant GOP congressional reps and senators as "MAGA Republicans" was ill-advised. I understand he was making a political statement, but he will end up alienating a large number of Republicans (the ones who thought Trump was a good president, but did not agree with Jan 6 actions). He could have made the same impact by pointing the figure with a simple epithet like ultra-MAGA or referring to sycophantic congressional reps and senators by name. For example, shaming Senator Graham directly for his threats of "riots in the street" after a Trump indictment.
He also made things more divisive by pointing to social-conservative beliefs as extremist. Things like pro-life and traditional marriage are not new Trumpian conservative values. Lumping those beliefs with anti-democratic extremist will lead to more circling of the wagons around the GOP banner, and to re-embracing strongman authoritarian style leadership.
Those two moves, were the most divisive things his speech did.
Missed Opportunity
He should have made this speech a more direct call out to the most offensive GOP sycophants that are still in office. Greene, Gaetz, Boebert, Cruz, Graham, Hawley, and others who have done nothing but defend the indefensible behavior of Donald Trump and those that have sought to vilify the FBI, the DOJ, and the IRS. He should have called out specific upcoming elections where election-conspiracy promoters are in position to take positions where they could overturn elections. These are the most important things to fight against.
Overall, the optics and overly broad attacks in the speech will unfortunately drown out much of the unifying rhetoric he intended to give. Biden, I look at him like the steward of Gondor - not worthy to be King, but he is a better occupant of the White House than a puppet of Sauron (or Putin) like Trump.
GOP: I don't want to vote for Biden in 2024 - I don't. However, if you persist in trying to bring Trump back, you leave me and many other clear seeing centrists and conservatives no choice.
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