The article on Monday, entitled “The GOP reaction to Biden's speech shows that his anti-MAGA strategy is working,” states that the present presidency is among the “most successful” in decades, with Biden signing bills that will “stimulate the economy, build infrastructure, fund semiconductor production, pay for veterans' health programs, regulate gun sales, lower prescription drug prices and roll back greenhouse gas emissions.”
Although he has repeatedly “pushed a message of bipartisanship” for many years, the author claims that President Biden “has gotten so much of his agenda enacted, and with the midterm elections looming, he has switched to a more combative mode.”
Boot spoke of Biden's Thursday night speech that outlined the supposed dangers that former president Donald Trump and his supporters are posing to the democratic system, as a “well-justified expression of rage and despair about what the Republican Party has become.”
“The president is finally telling Democrats what they want to hear: ‘Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.'”
Although Republicans “screamed bloody murder” when they protested the president's remarks, according to the author, President Biden “was careful to differentiate between normal Republicans and MAGA Republicans.”
“What Biden is doing is smart, if difficult to pull off: He is attempting to draw a dividing line between those Republicans who threaten U.S. democracy and those who don't,” Boot writes.
The issue, he explains, lies in the fact that “MAGA Republicans aren't some fringe movement” they actually control the GOP.
“Whatever figure you use for MAGA Republicans, it's clear that they account for tens of millions of voters and pose a major threat to our democracy,” Boot says.
By focusing on “MAGA Republicans,” Boot suggests that the president Biden has been “trying once again to persuade independents and the small number of moderate Republicans to support Democratic candidates.”
“His strategy could go awry in the form of igniting excitement within Trump supporters (as was the situation in the case of Clinton's “basket of doomsdays” comment), but there is evidence to suggest it might be working,” the author says.
Boot ends by praising the president for his move to “start attacking ‘MAGA Republicans,'” while describing the Republicans “hysterical” reaction as a result of “Republican fear that his strategy — of turning ‘MAGA' into a toxic brand — might succeed.”
President Biden's Thursday night Prime-Time initiative close to Independence Hall in Philadelphia called for Americans to “stop” MAGA Republicans, whom he repeatedly described as a dark menace against the rule of law throughout Biden's “Soul of the Nation.”
In reaction, Republicans slammed the president's controversial statements, accusing him of seeing his political rivals as “domestic terrorists.”
In the past, Boot attacked the GOP for being “shifted to kooks” and transformed into a “cult of personality” and an enclave for “irrationality,” “conspiracy mongering,” and “racism,” while calling for “center-right” GOP voters to embrace Biden.
He also also called for heavyweight telecommunications companies to block conservative cable news outlets like Fox News, One America News, as well as Newsmax TV, comparing the necessity of doing so to the need to shut down terrorists from abroad.
“There is a whole infrastructure of incitement that will remain intact even after Trump leaves office,” Boot wrote. “Just as we do with foreign terrorist groups, so with domestic terrorists: We need to shut down the influencers who radicalize people and set them on the path toward violence and sedition.”
