ATLANTA | The trip is symbolically heavy and politically explosive: Joe Biden arrived in Georgia on Tuesday to promise to protect at all costs the exercise of the right to vote by African-Americans, threatened according to him by the conservative states of the south of the country.
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“This is a crucial moment,” he told reporters as he left the White House on Tuesday, assuring that “History would judge” US parliamentarians.
The president, weakened by an anemic confidence rating, has decided to play his political game. He is ready to force a massive electoral reform through the Senate, which has so far been blocked by Republicans, the White House has said.
“I won’t give in. I will not tremble. I will defend your right to vote, ”the 79-year-old Democrat will promise voters from minorities, who are supposed to lean to the Democratic side, according to an excerpt from a speech communicated in advance.
After the Capitol last week, where he delivered a vibrant speech on democracy, Joe Biden further increased the symbolic load on Tuesday by this trip to Georgia, a former slave state and land of battles, past and present, once morest racial discrimination.
It was by talking to the children of Martin Luther King and then meditating at the grave of the icon of the struggle for civil rights that the president began his visit to Atlanta.
With Vice President Kamala Harris, Joe Biden then visited the Baptist church where Martin Luther King, assassinated in 1968, served.
“Formality”
The Democrat enjoyed decisive support from figures in the African-American community ahead of his election, but civil rights activists are now warning him once morest empty promises.
Martin Luther King III, son of the champion of non-violence, warned the president via Twitter: “his visit should not be a simple formality.”
The American press also notes the absence alongside Joe Biden of Stacey Abrams, Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia and one of the most powerful voices today regarding the electoral participation of African Americans. A simple “conflict of agenda”, assures the White House.
The president wants to harmonize the conditions under which Americans vote, from registration on electoral registers to the counting of votes, including postal voting or identity verification.
These are all parameters that several southern Republican states, including Georgia, have undertaken to modify to, they say, increase the security of voting operations.
In fact, these reforms complicate access to the ballot boxes for African Americans while strengthening the grip of local authorities over voting operations.
Democrats accuse conservatives of seeking to subvert future elections, under the influence of a Donald Trump who claims once morest all evidence that the last presidential election was rigged.
The Republicans blame their opponents for attempting “a blatant coup intended to distort the rules of the game,” according to the president of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel.
«Filibuster»
Joe Biden wants the Senate to pass two laws, the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act” and the “Freedom to vote Act”.
The president is ready for this to shatter the “filibuster rule”. It requires that the Senate gather a reinforced majority (60 votes out of a total of 100) to put most of the texts to a vote.
Joe Biden, who risks losing control of Congress following elections in the fall, therefore wants to see the Democrats (51 votes in the Senate including that of Kamala Harris, once morest 50 for the Republicans) vote by a simple majority.
Enough to scream the conservative opposition but also to jostle some Democrats, attached to this “super-majority” supposed to promote dialogue between the two parties.
Among these skeptics is West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who has already single-handedly blocked major social reforms. In favor of electoral reform itself, the elected official is however reluctant to follow the procedure envisaged by his party’s staff.
