President Biden issued one of his most dire warnings yet that Donald Trump and his allies are a threat to American democracy. He declared Thursday that the former president is more interested in personal power than upholding the country’s core values, suggesting that even mainstream Republicans are. complicit.

The silence is deafening, he said.

During a speech in Arizona celebrating the construction of a library in honor of his friend and fierce Trump critic, the late Republican Sen. John McCain, Biden reiterated one of his key campaign themes, labeling the Make America Great Again movement as a existential threat to the US. He’s reviving that idea ahead of next year’s presidential election after it buoyed Democrats in last fall’s midterm elections, laying out the threat in particularly stark terms: “Something dangerous is happening in America right now .

“We all need to remember that democracies don’t have to die at the end of a gun,” Biden said. “They can die if people remain silent, if they fail to stand up or condemn threats to democracy, if people are willing to give something away. that which is most precious to them, because they feel frustrated, disillusioned, tired and alienated.

The 2024 election is still more than a year away, but Biden’s focus reflects Trump’s status as the undisputed frontrunner for his party’s nomination, despite facing four charges, two of which are related with his efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 election victory.

The president’s speech was his fourth in a series of speeches on what he sees as challenges to democracy, a topic that has been a touchstone for him as he tries to stay in office despite low approval ratings and widespread voter concern about his age. , 80.

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He used this line of political attack often ahead of last year’s midterm elections, when Democrats won a seat in the Senate and narrowly lost the House of Representatives to the Republican Party. But shifting the narrative in Washington could be especially difficult given that Biden faces mounting pressure on Capitol Hill, where House Republicans held the first hearing in their impeachment inquiry and where the prospect of a shutdown of government looms, a prospect that Trump has actively stoked.

On the first anniversary of January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters staged an insurrection, Biden visited the Capitol and accused Trump of continuing to hold a dagger to the throat of democracy. He ended the summer of that year in the shadow of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, labeling Trumpism as a threat to democratic institutions.

And in November, as voters cast midterm votes, Biden again sounded a loud call to protect democratic institutions.

Advisers view the president’s continued focus on democracy as both good policy and good politics. Campaign officials have dug into last November’s election results, when candidates who denied the 2020 election results did not fare well in competitive races, and point to polls showing democracy was a highly motivating issue for voters in 2022.

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Our task, our sacred task of our time, is to ensure that they change not for the worse but for the better, that democracy survives and thrives, and is not crushed by a movement more interested in power than in principle, said Biden Thursday. It’s up to us, the American people.

As with previous speeches, the newest location was chosen for effect. It was near Arizona State University, home to the McCain Institute, named for the late senator, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate who spent his public life denouncing autocrats around the world.

Biden said there is “no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists.” He pointed to Trump’s recent suggestion that Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is leaving his post Friday, be executed for alleged treason against him.

While I don’t believe even a majority of Republicans think so, the silence is deafening,” Biden added. He also noted that Trump has previously questioned those serving in the U.S. military, calling service members losers and losers. Was John a loser? Biden asked, referring to McCain, who survived a long prison sentence in Vietnam.

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Then he got even more personal, adding, “Was my son Beau, who lived next to a fire pit for a year and came home and died, a loser for volunteering to serve his country?

Republicans competing with Trump for their party’s 2024 presidential nomination have largely avoided challenging his election lies, and Biden said Thursday that voters can’t let them get away with it.

Democracy is not a partisan issue,” he said. “It’s an American issue.

After the speech, Biden spoke at a fundraiser in Arizona for his re-election campaign. Among those present was Brittney Griner, the basketball star who was arrested at Moscow airport last year on drug-related charges and held for nearly 10 months.