A Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll has confirmed the findings of other polls in recent days showing a majority of Americans found President Joe Biden’s infamous “Dark MAGA” speech divisive and unhelpful.
Shared exclusively with The Hill, the poll showed a full 60 percent of Americans found it divisive for the president to denounce Donald Trump’s supporters as violent extremists. The other 40 percent believed that the president’s speech “united the nation and moved it forward.”
“Another 56 percent opposed the address, while 44 percent said they supported it,” noted The Hill.
Throughout the address, Biden routinely portrayed MAGA Republicans as violent right-wingers who disrespect the constitution and seek to strip Americans of their most basic rights.
“MAGA Republicans do not respect the constitution,” he said. “They do not believe in the rule of law, they do not believe in the rule of law, they do not recognize the will of the people.”
“MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards,” he added. “Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose. No right to privacy. No right to contraception. No right to marry who you love. They promote authoritarian leaders and they fan the flames of political violence.”
As the speech concluded, images of the president standing before a red and black backdrop with military soldiers flanking his sides poured out all over social media, evoking comparisons with the Third Reich, the USSR, and even the gates of hell.
A full 54 percent of respondents to the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll also said the speech resorted to “fear-mongering” while 46 percent said the fearmongering was “justified.”
“Joe Biden is facing a backlash from his speech that was viewed as divisive,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey. “While it pleased Democrats and even may have energized them, most voters saw the speech as inappropriate.”
Conducted between September 7 and 8, the poll surveyed 1,885 registered voters.
Democrats have largely rallied behind the president’s divisive rhetoric. On Tuesday, Democrat Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan went as far as to say Democrats need to “kill and confront” extremist Republicans.
“Look, Democrats aren’t right on everything, and I’m willing to sit down and have conversations about how we can move out of this age of stupidity and into an age of reconciliation and reform. How do we fix all of these broken systems,” he said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
“Some of those answers will come from Republicans, not the extremists that we are dealing with every single day. We’ve got to kill and confront that movement, but working with normal mainstream Republicans, that’s going to be really, really important,” he added.