Biden To Deliver “Soul Of The Nation” Speech in Primetime From Philadelphia As GOP Threatens Violence In The Streets

President Biden will deliver a primetime speech on Thursday from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where he plans to warn Americans about threats to the very core of American democracy.

According to the White House, Biden will speak about “how the core values of this nation – our standing in the world, our democracy – are at stake.” He also plans to discuss the fact that “our rights and freedoms are still under attack. And he will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for democracy.”

President Biden began his 2020 campaign at a rally in Philadelphia, and most expect him to return to the messaging of that campaign, in which the steady refrain was that the campaign was a battle for “the soul of the nation.”

The speech comes amidst a firestorm of revelations about former president Trump and the massive collection of improperly handled intelligence documents recently recovered from Mar-A-Lago, Trump’s resort in Florida.

As intelligence officials try to determine just how much damage has been done to US national security, an indictment of the former president seems more likely each day, and Trump’s political allies are warning their opposition that any action taken to hold the former president accountable will result in a violent response from the GOP base.

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said it very plainly on the Fox News program “Sunday Night in America”: 

“If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets.”

The message is clear and unambiguous. If the Department of Justice attempts to hold Trump accountable for the alleged crimes that are becoming more clear and more serious each day, the party that claims to be the defenders of “law and order” will take to the streets and become violent.

When President Biden steps to the podium on Thursday night, he will do so at a pivotal time in American history, when “the soul of the nation” truly hangs in the balance.

The outcome is uncertain, but one thing is not: America will be presented with a clear choice on Thursday night. What Americans do with that choice is yet to be seen.