U.S. President Joe Biden suffered a real barrage of verbal gunfire last Wednesday from Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who flatly rejected a proposal to scrap parliamentary law to pass legislation. want to guarantee the access of African Americans and other minorities to the elections.
Political tension escalated in Washington this week and the White House resident decided to get personally involved in the fighting.
“Pure demagogy”
“Unworthy of his office”, “pure demagogy”, “incoherent”, “wrong”: reacting to Joe Biden’s speech on Tuesday that he promised to do everything he can to protect minority suffrage, Mitch McConnell he did not seem willing to show the slightest restraint.
“I did not even recognize the man on the podium yesterday,” said the Republican leader in the Senate, referring to the Democratic president’s trip to the place of Martin Luther King.
The Conservative baron attacked the planned electoral reform promoted by the president, because according to him its purpose is for the Democrats “to take control of the elections”.
Mitch McConnell’s speech in the Senate semicircle signaled that now, ten months before the crucial November midterm elections, the gloves are off and all blows are allowed.
Joe Biden, who was in Congress yesterday to pay tribute to a late senator, was quick to respond to the man he worked with many times over the decades in the Capitol corridors: “I like Mitch McConnell, he’s a friend.” teasing tone.
A few minutes earlier, a White House spokeswoman had called the criticism “ridiculous” that Joe Biden’s speech on Tuesday could be considered offensive.
“What is much more offensive is the attempt to deprive the people of their fundamental right to vote,” Jen Psaki countered.
The US president, determined to get his hands dirty, will return to the Senate today to discuss with members of his party the path that must be followed to pass the reforms.
Already approved by the House of Representatives, the two bills aimed at protecting minority access to elections are currently “deadly” in the Senate, where a Democratic majority is too narrow to pass without the support of at least some Republican elected officials. . Unless the rules change, as Joe Biden threatened.
But to achieve this, we will need the support of two centrist Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema. They both oppose his plans and Joe Biden tries to change their attitude.
Holidays, snacks and drinks
The first of the two bills, dubbed the “Freedom to Vote Act”, provides for election day to be turned into a public holiday and for the right to vote to be extended by letter.
It also repeals a series of restrictions adopted in various conservative states after the 2020 presidential election, such as a ban on Georgia serving drinks and snacks in queues outside polling stations.
According to non-governmental organizations, the Republican measures target especially African-Americans, who voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden in the most recent election.
The second Democratic bill prohibits the adoption of any measure that restricts the access of any minority group to the electoral process, even if discrimination against it is not deliberate.
Hoping to be able to influence the dialogue, about fifteen African-American elected officials called on the Senate yesterday, with a clear emotional charge, to adopt electoral reform “urgently” to protect minority suffrage by giving an interview.
“It’s the most sacred thing I can think of,” said Black MP Joyce Beatty, who heads the group. “The most fundamental.”
Former Democratic President Barack Obama also spoke in favor of passing the bills, saying in an article published yesterday in the online edition of USA Today that “it is time for the Senate to do what is right.”
But Mitch McConnell saw in Joe Biden’s speech a “deliberate divisive” intervention aimed at “further alienating” Americans, a “delusion” that he described as “incoherent, erroneous,” “unworthy of office.” As for the president’s threat to scrap a rule that provides for a 60-vote majority in the Senate to pass major bills – known as filibuster in body language – Republicans see it as a very dangerous backdoor.
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