Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label political violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political violence. Show all posts

Sunday, February 04, 2024

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Red Hats

At the risk of belaboring the obvious: In the 1920s and 30s, it was Black Shirts in Italy, and Brown Shirts in Germany.

Now it's Red Hats here in USAmerica Inc.

They've been convinced of the absurdities, and they've begun to commit the atrocities.


To date, the news organization has identified at least 232 violent incidents fueled by political motives since the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021. The events range from riots to brawls at political demonstrations to beatings and murders.Nov 15, 2023
Oct 25, 2023 — Share who say they agree with the statement “American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save the country”. Survey of at least 2,000 U.S. ...
Oct 25, 2023 — Startling New Poll Finds Political Violence Gaining a Mainstream Foothold. Protests As Joint Session Of Congress Confirms Presidential Election Result ...
Sep 5, 2023 — But only 18 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaners feel gun violence is a major problem (versus 73 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaners). So ...
Aug 12, 2023 — “What concerns me is that authority figures — not just Trump, but many others in the Republican Party — have promoted violent groups and dismissed the violence ...
Oct 25, 2023 — Support for political violence increased over past two years, poll finds, offering snapshot of America's deepening polarisation.



Tuesday, January 09, 2024

Today's (Alleged) Fuckery


I use the word "alleged" because even a small-potatoes blogger should at least try to follow the rules.

That said, no one paying any attention at all can dismiss the real potential for disaster here.

These assholes ain't playin'.


Exclusive: Roger Stone Spoke With Cop Pal About Assassinating Eric Swalwell and Jerry Nadler

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, infamous political operative Roger Stone sat across from his associate Sal Greco at a restaurant in Florida.

At the time, Greco was an NYPD cop working security for Stone on the side. Their conversation, at Caffe Europa in Fort Lauderdale, focused on two House Democrats for whom Stone harbors particular animosity, Jerry Nadler and Eric Swalwell.

In audio of the conversation obtained exclusively by Mediaite, Stone made threatening comments about the two lawmakers.

“It’s time to do it,” Stone told Greco. “Let’s go find Swalwell. It’s time to do it. Then we’ll see how brave the rest of them are. It’s time to do it. It’s either Nadler or Swalwell has to die before the election. They need to get the message. Let’s go find Swalwell and get this over with. I’m just not putting up with this shit anymore.”

A source familiar with the discussion told Mediate they believed Stone’s remarks were serious. “It was definitely concerning that he was constantly planning violence with an NYPD officer and other militia groups,” the source said.

Both Nadler and Swalwell serve on the House Judiciary Committee. At the time of the Caffe Europa conversation, Nadler had announced the committee would be investigating then-President Donald Trump’s decision to commute Stone’s sentence after he was convicted of federal crimes in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

“A jury found Roger Stone guilty,” Nadler wrote on Twitter in July 2020. “By commuting his sentence, President Trump has infected our judicial system with partisanship and cronyism and attacked the rule of law. @House Judiciary will conduct an aggressive investigation into this brazen corruption.”

The source told Mediaite of Stone: “Stone had been at war with Nadler and Swalwell for years. He just hates them.”

“He just wanted to get Trump back into office so these things would stop,” the source added.

Stone was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress in the Mueller investigation. Prosecutors sought a nine-year prison sentence for the longtime Republican operative, but Trump’s Justice Department reportedly intervened to impose a less severe sentence. Stone’s sentence was eventually commuted by Trump days before reporting to prison.

The intervention from the Justice Department prompted Aaron Zelinsky, the prosecutor and Mueller deputy who led the case against Stone, to recuse himself from the case in protest. Mediaite reported last week that Stone was caught on tape in December 2020 urging Greco to “punish” Zelinsky.

“He needs to be punished,” Stone told Greco in the audio. “You have to abduct him and punish him. That has to be done. It will be easy to abduct him because he is a weakling.”

Stone denied making those comments, claiming they were generated by AI. He has previously claimed videos of his comments are actually “deep fakes.” In response to a request for comment on the remarks aimed at Swalwell and Nadler, Stone said, “Total nonsense. I’ve never said anything of the kind more AI manipulation. You asked me to respond to audios that you don’t let me hear and you don’t identify a source for. Absurd.”

Greco did not deny the comments, but said in a text to Mediaite: “I don’t think your reader is interested in ancient political fodder.”

Greco, who acted as security for Stone and was with the operative during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol soon after the 2020 election, was fired by the NYPD over his association with Stone. An NYPD spokesperson confirmed to Mediaite that Greco was terminated in August 2022.

Nadler and Swalwell did not respond to requests for comment.

Thursday, January 04, 2024

Signs


The actual violence is not, as yet, endemic. But given time and the corrosive effect of falsely motivating people to take extreme action when they don't feel justice has been served - makes for some very bad juju.

This Redden guy had no justification for what he did in the courtroom. My guess is he's just that kind of asshole, and that's the kind of asshole thing he does.

But take this incident and overlay it on what's going on in MAGA world. Every day, they're fed a heapin' helpin' of paranoia and victimization. They're told the system is totally rigged against them, and the courts - along with the rest of the government - are out to get 'em. So they need to rise up and "fight like hell - or you won't have a country..." 

I'm not talking about some random dickhead who apparently loses his shit and beats people up, just cuz.

And I'm not talking about people who have a legit beef with a system that fucks them over practically every day, and who show up and legit protest, willing to look for some of that good trouble that John Lewis talked about - and follow the rules of Civil Disobedience.

(Yes, there are rules for how you go about breaking the rules)

I'm talking about a double-digit cohort of dickheads who have legit concerns about getting fucked over, but have volunteered to get hoodwinked and bamboozled into thinking they're being victimized by women, or brown people, or Jews, or or or. They're mostly otherwise good decent folks who're "just going with the flow", but in many cases they're pretty hateful people deliberately misunderstanding that the ones telling them they're being played for fools are the the ones who're playing them for fools. 

So I may have gone off the path a little, but I think it's important to note the potential for violence against the institutions of democratic self-governance, especially in light of the death threats judges and politicians have been getting.

We are being radicalized, and that always makes for some very painful history.


Man leaps over bench to attack Nevada judge during sentencing, video shows

A sentencing hearing in Las Vegas turned chaotic Wednesday morning when a judge suddenly tried to scramble out of her chair as a defendant hurled himself over the bench, arms outstretched to attack her, courtroom video shows.

Deobra Redden, 30, was in court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded guilty in November to attempted battery with substantial bodily harm, according to court records.

Video from the hearing shows Judge Mary Kay Holthus suddenly look up as others in the courtroom began to yell. Redden can then be seen leaping over the bench and pulling Holthus to the ground as flags on either side of her chair fall to the floor. Two people can be seen pulling Redden away from the judge as someone yells “get off her,” according to the video, which has been viewed more than 30 million times on social media.

Holthus and a courtroom marshal were both injured in the attack, said Mary Ann Price, a spokesperson for Eighth Judicial District Court. The judge is being monitored for her injuries and the marshal was taken to a hospital, where Price said he is in stable condition.

“We commend the heroic acts of her staff, law enforcement, and all others who subdued the defendant,” Price added.

Just before the attack, an attorney for Redden asked for a sentence of probation, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Holthus can be heard in the video denying the request, telling the attorney: “I appreciate that, but I think it’s time that he gets a taste of something else because I just can’t with that history.” Redden had previously served time in prison for attempted theft and domestic battery, Nevada state records show.

Redden was taken into custody Wednesday on charges of battery and battery of a protected person, according to online jail records. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday evening.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said it is investigating a battery incident, which occurred around 11 a.m. at the Regional Justice Center. Police did not name anyone involved in the incident.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the scene in the courtroom was “unbelievable.”

“I’m sure he will be facing consequences for his actions,” Wolfson said in a statement to the paper.

Holthus, who became a judge for the Eighth Judicial District Court in 2019, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. She previously served more than two decades as a prosecutor for the Clark County district attorney’s office.

Weapons are barred in the courtroom, where people are instructed to “sit quietly when court is in session,” according to the Eighth Judicial District Court’s website.

Price said the court is committed to providing a safe and secure environment.

“We are reviewing all our protocols and will do whatever is necessary to protect the judiciary, the public and our employees,” she said.

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Overheard


Gay people aren't shooting up straight nightclubs.

A black man didn't shoot 9 white people at a prayer meeting.

Latinos aren't shooting up Walmarts filled with WASPy Americans.

Jews aren't shooting up Christians churches.

The shit is coming from one demographic: MAGA Radicalized White Men.



Thursday, December 15, 2022

The Mystery



David DePape, the unhinged lunatic who busted up in the Pelosis' house and beat 82-year-old Paul Pelosi with a hammer because his intended target 82-year-old Nancy Pelosi was not available, went to court yesterday. Dude has been talking from the beginning, and confessing. We already knew he wanted to "break her kneecaps" as an example to the other Democratic congressmen. He apparently had others on his list, but we didn't know exactly who.

We knew things he loved included Donald Trump, QAnon, Kanye, Russian stuff and white power stuff. He hates Jewish people, trans people, women, Black Lives Matter, and more. (Pretty typical profile these days in MAGA America.)

We also knew that literally every Republican conspiracy theory about the attack wasn't true, that this weird young man and old Paul Pelosi are not secret gay lovers, that he had not been invited to the Pelosi house for Netflix 'n' grooming, that it was not a false flag to make DePape LOOK LIKE a would-be January 6 terrorist who couldn't afford bus fare to January 6, and all the rest of whatever they said.

Oh, and lest we forget, we also know that extreme rhetoric on both sides did not attack Paul Pelosi. One entire side of extreme rhetoric didn't even show up at the Pelosi manse that night.

It was shocking, but it appeared Republicans' assessments of the attack weren't quite right.

Tucker Cannot Believe Berkeley Hippies These Days, Hurting Poor Paul Pelosi With Hammers

Nancy Pelosi's Husband Paul Will Be Fine After G*ddamn F*cking HAMMER Attack, Fox News Will Not

But about that court appearance. We know even more now about who was on his list. Let's have a look!

He wanted to attack Hunter Biden.

He wanted to attack Tom Hanks.

He wanted to attack Gavin Newsom.

He wanted to attack Gayle Rubin, who as the New York Post explains is "a University of Michigan professor who writes on queer theory, sex and gender."

You know, the targets you might be mad at if you consumed a lot of rightwing media and rightwing message boards. With the exception of Tom Hanks, about whom the conspiracy theories are uniquely QAnon, it reads like the Two Minutes Hate from any Fox News monologue.

(By the way, the New York Post goes to great pains not to connect any of the dots as to what might have been motivating the attacker. "DePape’s choice of targets and reasoning was unclear, beyond a general dislike of Democratic Party politicians and left-leaning figures," they type with a straight face. You betcha!)

These things were testified to by San Francisco Police Sgt. Carla Hurley, who said DePape confessed to them after his arrest. She also played video of his interview:

“There is evil in Washington. It’s this f–king record-breaking crime spree!” DePape said in the video. “The Democratic Party was for the past four years — This was f–king insane … So not only were they spying … they were spying, covering it up … They go from one crime to another crime, it’s the whole f–king 4 years.”

Add some all caps to that and deteriorate the grammar and what does it remind you of?
“I explained to him — I have other targets,” DePape said on the video. “I can’t be stopped. If you are willing to stop me, I’m not going to be stopped here.”

Spoiler, he was stopped, and he lived to face the charges.

Seriously, though: Hunter Biden, Gavin Newsom, Tom Hanks, some 73-year-old queer theory professor, where could he have gotten these names, what could it beeeeeeeeee?

So many mysteries - we must leave you to your uninformed speculations.

Sunday, November 06, 2022

The Threat Is Real


As I've said before - while the MAGA rubes can be quite vociferous, appearing to be very intimidating in their aggressive posture, it's mostly bluff-n-bluster.

But - we should expect incidents.

What we can't do is allow their macho displays to keep us from committing simple acts of democracy - voting, and supporting, and thereby defending the process that keeps assholes like these MAGA jerks from running the joint.

I'll be at my post on Election Day, as a poll observer, inside my assigned precinct, doing a solid for my country.

So fuck you guys.

Here I am, assholes - come and get me.


Nov 6 (Reuters) - Election workers in Arizona’s most fiercely contested county faced more than 100 violent threats and intimidating communications in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterms, most of them based on election conspiracy theories promoted by former President Donald Trump and his allies.

The harassment in Maricopa County included menacing emails and social media posts, threats to circulate personal information online and photographing employees arriving at work, according to nearly 1,600 pages of documents obtained by Reuters through a public records request for security records and correspondence related to threats and harassments against election workers.

Between July 11 and Aug. 22, the county election office documented at least 140 threats and other hostile communications, the records show. “You will all be executed,” said one. “Wire around their limbs and tied & dragged by a car,” wrote another.

The documents reveal the consequences of election conspiracy theories as voters nominated candidates in August to compete in the midterms. Many of the threats in Maricopa County, which helped propel President Joe Biden to victory over Trump in 2020, cited debunked claims around fake ballots, rigged voting machines and corrupt election officials.

Other jurisdictions nationwide have seen threats and harassment this year by the former president’s supporters and prominent Republican figures who question the legitimacy of the 2020 election, according to interviews with Republican and Democratic election officials in 10 states.

The threats come at a time of growing concern over the risk of political violence, highlighted by the Oct. 28 attack on Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband by a man who embraced right-wing conspiracy theories.

In Maricopa, a county of 4.5 million people that includes Phoenix, the harassment unnerved some election workers, according to previously unreported incidents documented in the emails and interviews with county officials.

A number of temporary workers quit after being accosted outside the main ballot-counting center following the Aug. 2 primary, Stephen Richer, the county recorder who helps oversee Maricopa’s elections, said in an interview. One temporary employee broke down in tears after a stranger photographed her, according to an email from Richer to county officials. The unidentified worker left work early and never returned.

She wasn’t a political person, she told Richer. She just wanted a job.

On Aug. 3, strangers in tactical gear calling themselves “First Amendment Auditors” circled the elections department building, pointing cameras at employees and their vehicle license plates. The people vowed to continue the surveillance through the midterms, according to an Aug. 4 email from Scott Jarrett, Maricopa's elections director, to county officials.

“It feels very much like predatory behavior and that we are being stalked,” wrote Jarrett.

ATTACKS PERSISTED


Since the 2020 election, Reuters has documented more than 1,000 intimidating messages to election officials across the country, including more than 120 that could warrant prosecution, according to legal experts.

Many officials said they had hoped the harassment would wane over time after the 2020 results were confirmed. But the attacks have persisted, fueled in many cases by right-wing media figures and groups that continue without evidence to cast election officials as complicit in a vast conspiracy by China, Democratic officials and voting equipment manufacturers to rob Trump of a second presidential term.

In April, local election officials in Arizona participated in a drill simulating violence at a polling site in which several people were killed, according to an April 26 email from Lisa Marra, the president of the Election Officials of Arizona, which represents election administrators from the state's 15 counties. The drill aimed to help officials prepare for Election Day violence, and left participants “understandably, disturbed” said the email to more than a dozen local election directors.

In a statement, Marra said: "This is just one other tool we can use to ensure election safety for all."

Maricopa officials appeared at times overwhelmed by threatening posts on social media and right-wing message boards calling for workers to be executed or hung. Some messages sought officials' home addresses, including one that promised “late night visits.” Employees were filmed arriving and leaving work, according to emails among county officials.

Two days after the Aug. 2 primary election, the county’s information security officer emailed the FBI pleading for help.

“I appreciate the limitations of what the FBI can do, but I just want to underline this,” wrote Michael Moore, information security officer for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. “Our staff is being intimidated and threatened,” he added. “We’re going to continue to find it more and more difficult to get the job done when no one wants to work for elections.”

A special agent for the FBI acknowledged the agency’s limitations, according to the emails. “As you put it, we are limited in what we can do - we only investigate violations of federal law,” the FBI agent responded in an Aug. 4 email. Reporting threats to local law enforcement is ”the only thing I can suggest,” the agent wrote, “even if at this point it has not resulted in any action.”

The FBI declined to comment on the agent’s response to Moore. It also declined to confirm or deny the existence of ongoing investigations into the threats.

Moore did not respond to requests for comment, but Richer, his boss, said in a statement that he greatly appreciated the FBI’s partnership and vigilance. "This is an inherently emotional topic - communications of the most vile nature have been repeatedly sent to my team,” the statement said.

One anonymous sender using the privacy-protective email service ProtonMail sent “harassing emails” for almost a year, Moore, wrote in an Aug. 4 email to the FBI. One message warned Richer that he’d be “hung as a traitor.”

“I’d like to have a black and white poster in my office of you hanging from the end of a rope,” the sender wrote.

The harassment and threats were affecting the mental health of election workers, Jarrett wrote in his Aug. 4 memo. “If our permanent and temporary staff do not feel safe, we will not be able (to) recruit and retain staff for upcoming elections.”

In all, county officials referred at least 100 messages and social media posts to FBI and state counter-terrorism officials. Reuters found no evidence in the correspondence that officials saw any of the messages as breaching the expansive definition of constitutionally protected free speech and crossing into the territory of a prosecutable threat.

The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment on specific ongoing investigations but said it has opened dozens of cases nationwide involving threats to election workers. Eight people face federal charges for threats, including two who targeted Maricopa County officials.

DOJ spokesperson Joshua Stueve said that while the “overwhelming majority” of complaints the agency receives “do not include a threat of unlawful violence,” he said the messages are “often hostile, harassing, and abusive” towards election officials and their staff. “They deserve better,” Stueve said.

ONLINE INSPIRATION

Misinformation on right-wing websites and social media fueled much of the hostility towards election staff, according to the internal messages among Maricopa officials.

On July 31, the Gateway Pundit, a pro-Trump website with a history of publishing false stories, reported that a Maricopa County election official allowed a staff technician to gain unauthorized access to a computer server room, where he deleted 2020 election data that was set to be audited. The website published the names and photos of the official and the tech; readers responded with threats against both.

“Until we start hanging these evil doers nothing will change,” one reader wrote in the Gateway Pundit’s comment section. Another suggested death for the computer tech identified in the story: “hang that crook from (the) closest tree so people can see what happens to traitors.”

The tech hadn’t deleted anything, according to a Maricopa spokesperson. The county election director had instructed him to shut down the server for delivery to the Arizona State Senate in response to a subpoena. A review of server records confirmed nothing was deleted, the spokesperson told Reuters, and all data from the 2020 election had been archived and preserved months earlier.

Election employees singled out in Gateway Pundit stories “tend to see a surge in being targeted” for threats and harassing messages, Moore, the county’s information security officer, said in a Nov. 18, 2021, email to the FBI. Those stories, he added, are often “flagrantly inaccurate.” A Reuters investigation published last December found the Gateway Pundit cited in more than 100 threatening and hostile communications directed at 25 election workers in the year after the 2020 election.

Other right-wing news outlets and commentators elicited similar hostile comments in response to their allegations against Maricopa officials. In August, right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk posted a comment in Telegram accusing Richer, the county recorder, and “his cronies” of making Arizona’s elections “a Third-World circus.”

“When do we start hanging these people for treason?” one reader commented. Another simply added, “Kill them.”


The Gateway Pundit and Kirk did not respond to requests for comment.

After a security assessment by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in late 2021, Maricopa strengthened doors, added shatterproof film on windows and bought more first aid kits, according to the documents.

But the harassment has continued.

“This goes beyond just onsite security. It is a mental health issue,” Jarrett, the county elections director, wrote in an email to county officials two days after the primary.

“I very much respect freedom of speech and welcome public scrutiny,” Jarrett added. “However, allowing this predatory activity to occur is damaging and threatening the viability of the elections department.”

Friday, November 04, 2022

Bidening

 
(pay wall)

Biden Warns That ‘Big Lie’ Republicans Imperil American Democracy

In a prime-time address, President Biden condemned election violence and voter intimidation just days before Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Give this article


WASHINGTON — President Biden issued an impassioned condemnation of his predecessor and other Republicans on Wednesday night for encouraging political violence, voter intimidation and “the Big Lie,” framing next week’s elections as a pivotal test of American democracy.

While candidates and voters have focused on economic and other issues, Mr. Biden sought to use a nationally televised evening speech to put the future of the nation’s system of elections front and center for the final days of debate before midterm elections on Tuesday that will determine control of Congress and numerous state offices.

“As I stand here today, there are candidates running for every level of office in America — for governor, Congress, attorney general, secretary of state — who won’t commit, they will not commit to accepting the results of the elections that they’re running in,” Mr. Biden said at Union Station, just blocks from where a mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to disrupt the transfer of power. “This is the path to chaos in America. It’s unprecedented. It’s unlawful. And it’s un-American.”

The president seemed particularly unnerved by the violent attack Friday on Paul Pelosi by a hammer-wielding assailant who the police say was seeking to kidnap his wife, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, using words reminiscent of those called out by rioters on Jan. 6. Mr. Biden traced the attack to former President Donald J. Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen.

“It’s a lie that fueled a dangerous rise in political violence and voter intimidation over the past two years,” Mr. Biden said. Citing examples of election workers being harassed and menaced, the president singled out Mr. Trump’s own efforts days before the Jan. 6 attack to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to reverse the outcome of the election in that state.

“This intimidation, this violence against Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisan officials just doing their jobs are the consequence of lies told for power and profit, lies of conspiracy and malice, lies repeated over and over to generate a cycle of anger, hate, vitriol and even violence,” Mr. Biden said. “In this moment, we have to confront those lies with the truth. The very future of our nation depends on it.”

Refusing to identify Mr. Trump by name, Mr. Biden nonetheless argued that his predecessor had undercut the rule of law. “American democracy is under attack because the defeated former president of the United States refuses to accept the results of the 2020 election,” Mr. Biden said. “He refuses to accept the will of the people. He refuses to accept the fact that he lost. He has abused his power and put the loyalty to himself before loyalty to the Constitution and he’s made a Big Lie an article of faith for the MAGA Republicans, a minority of that party.”

The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.

He noted that Mr. Trump’s false claims have been rejected across the board by courts and other authorities. “The Big Lie has been proven to be just that, a big lie, every single time,” Mr. Biden said. “Yet now, extreme MAGA Republicans aim to question not only the legitimacy of past elections, but elections being held now and into the future.”

Political violence has become an increasing concern in recent years. Threats against members of Congress have risen more than tenfold since Mr. Trump was elected in 2016, according to the U.S. Capitol Police, which registered more than 9,625 such threats last year alone.

Mr. Biden also expressed concern about Republican tactics that might intimidate voters in the name of election monitoring. A federal judge in Arizona this week restricted a group that had been planning to operate near polling places from taking photos of voters, openly carrying firearms and posting information about voters online.

The president has talked about what he perceives as the threat to democracy posed by Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election in previous campaign speeches, but he decided to devote a televised nighttime address to the subject just six days before Election Day to bring more attention to it.

This will be “the first election since the events of Jan. 6, when the armed, angry mob stormed the U.S. Capitol,” he said. “I wish, I wish I could say the assault on our democracy ended that day. But I cannot.”

“This is no ordinary year,” he added. “So I ask you to think long and hard about the moment we are in. In a typical year, we’re often not faced with the question of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put us at risk. But this year we are.”

More than 370 Republican candidates have questioned and, at times, outright denied the results of the 2020 election despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, according to a monthslong New York Times investigation. Mr. Trump has made fealty to his false claims a litmus test for his support for Republican candidates.

While Mr. Biden excoriated Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, he once suggested that he too might not accept the results of this year’s vote if policies he deemed restrictive of the right to vote were enacted by Republican states. “It all depends on whether or not we’re able to make the case to the American people that some of this is being set up to try to alter the outcome of the election,” he said at a news conference in January.

He has stayed away from such a formulation since then, recognizing that it provided ammunition to Republicans looking to justify their continued adherence to Mr. Trump’s lies about 2020. Reminded of his comments before Wednesday night’s speech, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, was asked if the president expected next week’s elections to be legitimate. “That is a yes,” she said.

The issue of election denialism has challenged the system in unpredictable ways. In some cases earlier this year, Democrats even promoted some far-right election deniers in Republican primaries in a calculated effort to elevate what they presumed would be weaker opponents for the fall general election. Some Democrats complained that the strategy sent mixed messages and risked making it possible for election deniers to gain office.

While largely agreeing with the argument in Mr. Biden’s Wednesday night speech, not every Democrat thought it was helpful to make the address when candidates are trying to distance themselves from the president, whose approval ratings are in the mid-40s, and voters in polls are focused on issues like inflation as well as immigration, crime and abortion.

“Issues of democracy are hugely important at this moment and in next week’s election. Totally appropriate for @POTUS to address them,” David Axelrod, the former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter. “Still, as a matter of practical politics, I doubt many Ds in marginal races are eager for him to be on TV tonight.”

Republicans once again asserted that in criticizing them for election denial, Mr. Biden was himself being divisive instead of the uniter he promised to be. “Desperate and dishonest,” the Republican National Committee said in a statement without waiting for the speech to be delivered. “Joe Biden promised unity but has instead demonized and smeared Americans, while making life more expensive for all.”

Mr. Biden has struggled with how frontally he should confront Mr. Trump’s followers and the election denialism he has fostered, reluctant on the one hand to allow his predecessor to dominate his own presidency while eager on the other hand to defend what he sees as a system under historic assault.

He has at times given forceful speeches lashing out at Mr. Trump and his allies, including last winter on the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack and again during a speech on Sept. 1 in Philadelphia when he denounced the former president and his “MAGA Republicans” for threatening “the very foundations of our Republic.”

Surveys show that voters across the ideological and political spectrum agree that American democracy is under threat but see it from radically different viewpoints: While liberals and many moderates view Mr. Trump as the danger, supporters of the former president see the true risk as Mr. Biden and policies that they say amount to socialism.

Either way, voters were far likelier to identify inflation and the economy as well as other issues as their top priorities over the future of democracy. In fact, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, more than a third of independent voters and even 12 percent of Democrats said they were open to supporting candidates who reject the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Mr. Biden seemed almost to be arguing with those voters who were not, in his view, prioritizing election legitimacy highly enough. Medicare, Social Security and the other issues were important, he said, “but there’s something else at stake: democracy itself.” He added: “We can’t pretend it’s just going to solve itself.”