Six days before the US congressional elections, President Joe Biden warned of a threat to democracy in America. He urged voters on Wednesday (local time) to cast their ballots on November 8 – and to reject election deniers and politically motivated violence. “In a normal year, we don’t face the question of whether the vote we cast preserves democracy or endangers it,” Biden said at a Democratic campaign event in Washington. “But this year we are.”

Biden pointed out in his televised speech that next Tuesday’s vote will be the first US election since violent supporters of his predecessor Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. “I wish I could say that the attack on our democracy ended that day. But I can’t,” the 79-year-old told the audience.

In the upcoming election, there will be more than 300 Republican candidates “at every level of government in the United States” who “have not committed themselves to recognizing the results of the elections in which they vote,” Biden said. Her goal is to try to “undermine the electoral system itself” in Trump’s footsteps. They “encouraged violence and intimidation of voters and poll workers.” This is “the road to chaos in the US”, it is “unprecedented”, “illegitimate” and “un-American”.

Republican ex-President Trump refuses to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and continues to spread the lie that he was robbed of a victory by voter fraud. Following this example, several Republicans who are running for mandates or offices in the “Midterms” leave it open whether they will accept the outcome of the election in any case.

Biden, who otherwise always emphasized the importance of compromise and cooperation across party lines, had recently sharpened his rhetoric and attacked Trump and his supporters more directly than ever. In a speech in Philadelphia in September, he called on Americans to take a stand “against extremism” in the midterm elections. Trump and the so-called Maga Republicans stand for an extremism that threatens the foundations of the republic. Maga stands for Trump’s previous campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”.

In his speech on Wednesday, Biden said Maga Republicans, while a minority, are a “powerful force” in the Republican party. “This driving force is trying to succeed where it failed in 2020 to suppress voter rights and subvert the electoral system itself,” the Democrat warned. He called on candidates who deny the 2020 election result to accept the results of the upcoming midterm elections. “This fight that we are in now is a fight for democracy, a fight for decency and dignity, a fight for prosperity and progress. It is a fight for the soul of America itself,” Biden exclaimed.

The US President once again described the violent attack on the 82-year-old husband of Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi last Friday. The perpetrator was after the powerful democrat herself, but did not find her during the attack. The false claims by Maga Republicans of the “stolen 2020 election” have led to a dangerous rise in politically motivated violence in the United States, Biden said. “We must speak out against political violence and voter intimidation with an overwhelming voice. We must face this problem. We cannot pretend that it will solve itself.”

Currently, however, numerous voters in the USA are more concerned with the persistently high inflation of 8.2 percent recently than with concerns about democracy. According to polls, Biden’s Democrats are likely to lose their majority in the House of Representatives to the opposition Republicans in the elections. The Democrats could defend their wafer-thin Senate majority. However, several decisive races are so close that forecasts are very difficult.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and about a third of the seats in the Senate will be up for grabs in the mid-term elections in the US next week. Gubernatorial elections and votes on other posts are also pending in numerous states.