The world needs mixed feelings about its politics and its politicians. For instance, I find it not one bit difficult to hold both of these views fully and simultaneous:
No, I am not happy with Biden lumping pro-life people with MAGA. Unfortunately, a lot of pro-lifers have done this themselves. Still, it frustrates me when [Democrats] can’t distinguish between issues Americans have been divided on for a long time [and] the GOP’s dangerous new direction.
The question isn’t whether there is a large overlap between pro-lifers and pro-Trumpers – there clearly is. The question is whether holding this position is one of the things that makes pro-Trumpers a “threat to the Republic”.
Biden has come very close to implying it is, and I think that includes a lot of people… who have no truck with what happened on 1/6, and actually helped prevent it from succeeding.
Americans are going to disagree fiercely about many issues for years to come. It is important to distinguish between this and the rising flirtation with authoritarian populism.
And yes, two cheers for Biden. I need to say this more. With some luck but also persistent, quiet outreach to Europe and tight military collaboration with Ukraine, he has a significant foreign policy coup shaping up. His open sharing of US intelligence has kept Russia off-balance; his balanced arming of Ukraine has prevented the war from spiraling out of control; his marshaling of NATO has been superb.