(Don’t go back to) Rockville

You may have heard that President Biden spoke at a public rally in Rockville, Maryland on Thursday to disparage “MAGA Republicans,” declare he had no respect for them, name-check President Trump, and decry the “semi-fascism” of those such as us who believe in securing the United States and our freedoms. It’s an upside down world.

The AP covered Biden’s speech here along with the video below. Ian Schwartz has posted a video with partial transcript here at RealClearPolitics. In the video one can observe Biden staring vacantly into the teleprompter. As always, it’s disquieting.

Biden calls out Trump voters in the name of “unity, hope and optimism.” He “mean[s it] sincerely.” Like his supposed rejection of “hyperbole,” that “sincerely” is one of several giveaways that he’s not exactly playing it straight. Many of the comments on the AP YouTube video aren’t necessarily buying the slop Biden serves up either. To take just one example: “Your right for taxpayer money to build my wall around my beach house and change my diapers are on the ballot.”

The speech puts me in mind the REM song “(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville” on Reckoning. The chorus goes: “Don’t go back to Rockville / And waste another year.”

“We can’t afford another year” would be a little more like it in this case.

Quotable quote: “What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something — it’s like semi-fascism.”

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