“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” Biden declared during his primetime speech Thursday evening. The speech was full of dangerous and divisive rhetoric accusing millions of Americans of being a threat to our democracy. Biden specifically cited questioning the results of an election as being a huge part of the problem.
“Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated,” he claimed. “And that’s where MAGA Republicans are today.”
Of course, what he didn’t mention is that, by his own standards, he’s an election denier, too. In 2020, when a supporter of his told him she thought Trump was an illegitimate president, he agreed. His vice president, Kamala Harris, also said that Trump was an illegitimate president, and his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, also believes the 2016 election was stolen from Hillary.
But, while the irony and utter hypocrisy of Biden’s speech is worthy of exploration, we really must discuss the fact that there is a threat to our democracy, but it’s not from Donald Trump or his millions of supporters. In recent weeks, it’s become clear that the highly politicized Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the true threat to our democracy, and it’s long overdue for reform.
The FBI has interfered in the past two presidential elections with the goal of stopping Donald Trump. Crossfire Hurricane failed to stop Trump in 2016, but it is widely believed that the FBI’s efforts in 2020 impacted the results of the election. According to a recent poll, nearly 80% of Americans believe that accurate coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal would have changed the outcome of the election.
Last month we also learned that the FBI decided not only to quash the investigation of Hunter Biden’s laptop and his financial dealings until after the election but that they sought to prevent the story from being talked about on social media, According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook buried the laptop story because the FBI warned about Russian disinformation. Thanks to efforts of the FBI and the media, 11% of those polled still believe the laptop is Russian misinformation, despite mainstream media acknowledging its authenticity earlier this year.
Questioning the results of a lost election is a Democratic pastime. There hasn’t been a presidential election they lost in over twenty years that they haven’t disputed the results of. But, in 2020, legitimate questions of irregularities and voter fraud were quickly dismissed as conspiracy theories — a mere four years after an election Democrats long insisted had been stolen by Trump, who colluded with Russia to alter the results. Millions of dollars and countless manhours went into investigating these bogus claims which, of course, turned up nothing. Why? Because it was a complete hoax perpetuated by the FBI.
So it’s absolutely fair to call the FBI a threat to democracy because it keeps interfering in presidential elections. Without reform, it’s reasonable to believe it will continue to do so.