With the US midterm elections just weeks away, incumbent President Joe Biden and his Republican rival, Donald Trump, have been scouring the country for support for their party’s candidates, exchanging vicious direct attacks.
However, Biden has chosen not to attend major rallies, which analysts say reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some districts and states across the country.
The US president chose to focus on fundraising actions and official acts, in which he has drawn contrasts between the Democratic and Republican political agendas, in addition to warning about the growth of extremism among the opposition.
Donald Trump, who refuses to leave the stage despite being investigated on several fronts, has held raucous rallies in several states, where he has alternated between defending his handpicked candidates and personally disparaging and attacking Joe Biden, reiterating the assertion unfounded of who “not to lose” the last elections.
While Joe Biden, 79, has called Donald Trump and his cadre of supporters “semi-fascists” and a “threat to democracy,” the 76-year-old Republican has said the Democrat suffers from “cognitive impairment” and is ” unable to lead America.”
Here is a list of key arguments used by the president and his Republican rival in the November 8 midterm campaigns:
Inflation
A poll published Oct. 17 by the New York Times and Siena College indicated that the economy and inflation are the top issues for 44% of likely voters.
On October 8, in the state of Nevada, in a speech before thousands of supporters, Trump blamed the Democrats for the high inflation in the country: “Two years ago, everything was so good in our country … and now it is is falling apart.” Now we have gasoline at $5.54 (5.6 euros) a gallon (3.78 liters),” Trump said.
About a month earlier, at an election rally in Ohio, Trump had already said that “just two years ago,” when he was in office, “gasoline was at an all-time low,” he said. “Under the Trump administration, we had the largest economy in the history of the world without inflation. Biden and the Democratic Congress created the worst inflation in 50 years and it’s going to get much worse,” he added.
In August, Joe Biden managed to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, a great Democratic victory and, attentive to the priorities of Americans, the president has used his speeches to indicate that the economy and the fight against inflation are priorities.
“I believed we could pull America out of the depths of Covid-19, so we passed the largest economic recovery package since Franklin Roosevelt. And today, the American economy is faster, stronger than any other advanced nation in the world.” , said. on September 1 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In a speech in California on October 14, Biden declared that “prices and inflation will go up if the Republicans take control” of Congress after the midterm elections.
abortion
Joe Biden has been trying to remobilize Americans around abortion rights, promising to enshrine it in federal law in the event of a Democratic victory in Congress. The head of state bets on the indignation caused by the repeal by the Supreme Court -with a conservative majority- of the right to abortion, to win votes from the left and center.
“Remember what you felt that day (June 24, when the US Supreme Court reversed the ‘Roe v. Wade’ decision) the anger, the concern, the disbelief,” Joe Biden launched during a speech in Washington , on October 11, denouncing “the chaos” after that decision.
“Within four months, laws banning abortion went into effect in 16 states … and Republicans elected to Congress went further” by promising to adopt such a ban at the federal level if they took control of Congress, he recalled.
In this regard, Biden urged the public to elect more Democrats to the Senate and the House of Representatives, promising that the first legislation he sends to Congress in a victory scenario over the Republicans “will be to codify Roe V. Wade.” “And as soon as Congress approves it, I will sign the bill,” promised the head of state.
On the other hand, the Republicans have silenced their positions on abortion, aware that it could cost them votes.
However, in June, shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, Donald Trump credited himself with cementing the Court’s conservative foundations, which struck down abortion-rights protections.
“This decision was only possible because I did everything I promised, including appointing and managing to place three highly respected constitutional justices on the Supreme Court,” Trump said on July 24, adding that it was “the biggest victory for the [causa pró-]life in a generation.
On June 26, at a rally in Illinois, he called the Supreme Court’s decision a “victory” for “the rule of law and, above all, a victory for life.” “This breakthrough is the answer to the prayers of millions and millions of people, and those prayers are decades old,” he said.
However, at subsequent election rallies, Trump rarely brought up the issue of abortion in his speeches again.
Republican anti-abortion rhetoric was recently shaken by a report in The Daily Beast that Georgia Republican Senate candidate and Trump supporter Herschel Walker, who wants to outright ban abortion under any circumstances, has made an exception by paying for abortion. of a woman with whom he had a relationship in 2009. Trump, along with the Republican Party, quickly came to the candidate’s defense, stressing that they had no doubts about Walker’s innocence.
war in ukraine
Since arriving at the White House in January 2021, Biden has sent more than 17.5 billion dollars (17.9 billion euros) in military aid to Ukraine.
So far, US financial support for kyiv has garnered strong bipartisan support in both the Senate and House of Representatives.
However, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy warned last week that his party will not write Ukraine a “blank check” if it wins a majority of midterm seats.
Given these statements, Joe Biden took advantage of a fundraising event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a key state for the midterm elections, to criticize the Republican position on the war.
“They [os republicanos] they say that if they win, they probably won’t continue to finance Ukraine. They do not understand. This is much bigger than Ukraine. It is Eastern Europe. It’s NATO,” Biden criticized Thursday, noting that Republicans “don’t understand American foreign policy.”
On the conflict in Ukraine, Trump has maintained the rhetoric that had he been in power there would never have been a war. On September 17, at a rally in Ohio, the Republican warned that the United States “could end up in World War III.”
“Now we have a war between Russia and Ukraine with potentially hundreds of thousands of people dying, something that would never have happened if I had been president. This would never have happened if the elections had not been rigged,” he said.
Lawsuits against Trump and attack on Capitol Hill
The commission investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill issued a subpoena to Donald Trump on Friday, saying the Republican “orchestrated” a plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump is also under investigation for possible violations of the Espionage Act, according to the media, for “withholding confidential documents”, and for alleged obstruction of justice and destruction of federal government records.
On September 3, at a rally in Pennsylvania, Trump called the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, mansion one of the biggest “abuses of power” ever seen in the country.
Already on September 17, at the Ohio rally, Trump said he was the victim of a “witch hunt” by people “with no shame, no morals, no conscience and absolutely no respect for citizens.”
“For six years in a row, I have been harassed, investigated, smeared, slandered, and persecuted like no other president and probably like no one else in American history. Yet all I ever wanted was to simply make America the way it was again.” big,” he continued. .
At a rally in Nevada on October 8, Trump boasted about the size of the crowd that gathered on his behalf on January 6 outside the Capitol, which resulted in the deaths of five people and the injury of more than 140 police officers.
“Do you know what the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen is? The one on January 6,” the former president said.
In turn, on September 1, from the historic Independence Hall (Philadelphia) where the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were delivered, Joe Biden warned that the democratic values of the US. they are being attacked by extremist forces loyal to their predecessor.
With criticism explicitly directed at the ‘MAGA’ movement: Donald Trump’s iconic campaign slogan ‘Make America Great Again’ [Tornar a América Grande de Novo] – Biden criticized the “blind” fanaticism of some followers of the former head of state, whom he described as a “threat” to the United States.
“They [republicanos do MAGA] look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol, viciously attacking law enforcement, not as insurgents who put a dagger to the neck of our democracy, but as patriots,” he said.
“There is no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, run, intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country. (…) The MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. . They thrive on chaos,” Biden stressed.
Source: TSF
