The White House is touting “norms” and “institutions” that it has long warned Trump would destroy

ANALYSIS – President Joe Biden and senior White House aides have deviated from their dire warnings about fascism, citing the same “norms” and “institutions” they warned would be destroyed if Donald Trump returns to power.

Seated on beige chairs Wednesday in the Oval Office – a fire raged behind them and portraits of former presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln hung above their heads – Biden shook hands with Trump and said with a straight face: ‘Welcome. . Welcome back.”

His top spokesperson later told reporters that Biden, despite his dire warnings about another Trump term, was “looking forward to the meeting,” calling them “very cordial, very friendly and substantive.” The same spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, even said that Biden “will obviously always keep that line of communication open for the president-elect.”

It was all very surreal stuff, viewed through the lens of the past four years.

The outgoing commander-in-chief devoted several high-profile speeches and extensive campaign rhetoric during his presidency to warning voters about a second Trump term. Perhaps the most memorable occurred on September 1, 2022, at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, when Biden said bluntly that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the foundation of our republic.”

Fast forward nearly two years to a big-dollar fundraiser in July in Los Angeles, when Biden, shortly before ending his bid for a second term, declared that “institutions matter,” adding Trump’s role in fueling the mob that stormed the Capitol. on January 6, 2021: “What he did on January 6, and now he’s literally saying if he doesn’t win, there will be a massacre.”

“It’s outrageous – what he’s talking about is outrageous,” the president added in July. “The idea that he actually threatened retaliation. This is the United States of America. Did you ever think you would ever hear something like this?

Despite Biden’s words and those of other Democrats, the striking change in tone in the Biden White House began last Thursday, when the president addressed the nation from the Rose Garden about the election results. “The American experiment continues,” he said. “We’ll be fine.

“Setbacks are inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable. … Remember, defeat does not mean we are defeated. We have lost this battle,” Biden said. “The America of your dreams calls you to rise again. That has been the story of America for over 240 years.”

The messaging shift was shocking, given that Biden, his top aides and prominent Democrats in Congress had spent years talking about a Trump return to power in dire — almost catastrophic — terms. Things continued Tuesday in the White House briefing room as reporters questioned Jean-Pierre about Trump’s visit, at the president’s invitation, to the Oval Office.

“He wants to show the American people that the system works,” she said. “To trust the institution, to trust that the standards matter here, to trust him to show through leadership what a transition, a peaceful transition, looks like… (what) a smooth transition looks like. And that is the message.”

It’s also a dramatic change in the message of Democrats’ collective campaign talk about Trump erasing those “norms” and either neutering or using those federal “institutions” for his own personal retaliation.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate who lost to Trump last week, responded on October 23, “Yes, I do” when asked during a CNN-hosted town hall whether she believed Trump was a “fascist.” Later, during the same primetime event, she urged voters to prioritize “not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

‘Campaign in poetry’

During a June 7 speech in Normandy, France honoring D-Day veterans, Biden cast the United States and the world as being locked in a battle between dictators and freedom. He never said Trump’s name, but he didn’t have to. His message and intent were clear as the French sky that day.

In a plea to American voters that day, Biden urged them to fight the “most natural instinct … to run away.” Instead, he said Americans should oppose those who plan to “force their will on others to seize power.”

“American democracy requires the hardest thing of all: believing that we are part of something bigger than ourselves,” he said. “Democracy starts with each of us.”

The White House declined to comment.

But David Jolly, a former Republican Party lawmaker in Florida, said: “Biden has earned the suspicion of a defender of our democratic institutions.”

“He explored that in 2020, spoke about that during the election cycle and demonstrated that in his commitment to an orderly transition of power,” Jolly added. “I see remarkable consistency based on personal humility and constitutional respect, not inconsistency.”

Ivan Zapien, a former DNC official and Senate staffer, pointed to a comment once uttered by the late New York Governor Mario Cuomo.

Cuomo “summed it up best: ‘You campaign in poetry and govern in prose,’” Zapien said in an email. “Now that the campaign is over, they are peacefully and elegantly transferring power and supporting the intuitions and norms they hold.”

Given the election results, with Trump’s decisive Electoral College victory and victory in the Rust Belt and Sun Belt battleground states, what choice does Biden have?

In June, Biden said in Normandy that “surrendering to bullies and bowing to dictators is simply unthinkable,” adding: “To do so would mean forgetting what happened here on these sacred beaches. Make no mistake. We will not bow down.”

Voters have not “bowed” to Trump and his worldview, complete with his vow to be a “dictator” on day 1. A majority of them – 75.8 million and counting – embraced it at the ballot box.