Biden says democracy threatened by Republican ‘election subversion’

President Joe Biden said Tuesday that protecting voting rights from what he called Republican “election subversion” poses a historic “test” for the United States in the wake of the 2020 election.

“It’s up to all of us to protect that right. It’s a test of our time,” he said in a speech in Philadelphia, birthplace of the US Constitution.

Speaking at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Biden called state efforts to curtail voting accessibility “un-American” and “un-democratic” and launched a broadside against his predecessor, Donald Trump, who baselessly alleged misconduct in the 2020 election after his defeat.

Biden called passage of congressional proposals to override new state voting restrictions and to restore parts of the Voting Rights Act that were curbed in recent years by the Supreme Court “a national imperative.”

Referring to attempts led by Donald Trump to overturn the result of the presidential election, as well as pile on new voting rules in the name of security, Biden said “this is election subversion.”

“It’s the most the most dangerous threat to voting and the integrity of free and fair elections in our history,” he said in a fiery speech.

Biden noted that in response to Republican allegations of fraud in 2020, more than 80 courts — right up to the Supreme Court — held hearings and in every case found nothing significantly wrong.

The 2020 presidential and congressional election saw the highest turnout in history, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, and was subsequently “the most scrutinized election ever in American history,” he said.

Without naming Trump, he made clear what he thought of the Republican’s unprecedented campaign to overturn the results.

“The big lie’s just that: a big lie,” he said. “In America if you lose you accept the results, you follow the constitution. You try again. You don’t call facts ‘fake’ and then try to bring down the American experiment just because you’re unhappy.”