First off, did anyone bother to watch Joe Biden’s rerun of his “red wedding” speech from August? Be honest. How many of us satisfied ourselves with updates on Twitter and the transcript?

By all accounts, no one missed much with that approach. At the same time Biden’s Department of Homeland Security operates a Big Brother program to “shape” public discourse and dissent over topics like “racial justice” and Biden’s disgraceful rout from Afghanistan, the president decided to make one last pitch for, um, democracy.

Biden also railed on about political violence, albeit with his only concern about violence directed at Democrats. The Pelosis got a mention right at the top, but the assassination attempt by a pro-abortion radical on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh — just five months ago — didn’t get any attention at all from Biden. Nor did the assassination attempts on House Republicans at a baseball practice in 2017 get a single mention, despite its explicitly political motivation by a progressive extremist. And let’s not forget the riots that broke out all during 2020, mainly perpetrated by radical-Left Antifa cells and the urban insurrections of the self-declared “autonomous zones.”

The only voters Biden called out in this speech were “MAGA extremists.” And Biden’s only concern is their undermining of confidence in elections, while failing to mention that Democrats spent two-plus years claiming that Russia cooked the 2016 elections to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House. Stacey Abrams, whom Biden endorsed, has maintained for four years that her loss in 2018’s Georgia gubernatorial election was a stolen election.

Ben Shapiro has a pretty good distillation of Biden’s argument:

Last night, Joe Biden suggested that Super Duper Pooper Scooper Xtreme Ultra Mega Jumbo MAGA will undermine future elections by questioning their legitimacy. He did this by saying that if they win, all future elections will be compromised and untrustworthy. 🧐

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 3, 2022

In other words, it’s yet another dreary example of Joe Biden’s poisonous demagoguery. If you watched it instead of reading it, you did get a bonus “fumble,” when Biden insisted we settle our differences at the “battle box” rather than riot:

Biden: "We don't settle our differences in America with a riot… We settle them peacively at the battle box" pic.twitter.com/Y1JxHibBZj

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) November 2, 2022

“Battle box” is not a bad description of how the Twin Cities felt for a week or more in the spring of 2020. I don’t recall Biden going on television to specifically lecture the Left about riots at that time, even though by then Biden had wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination.

The question will be whether this does anything to reverse Democrat fortunes in next week’s midterms. The answer is: almost certainly not. Democrats have spent this cycle speaking about irrelevancies to the daily lived experiences of American families, who worry about inflation, crime, and radicalized education for their children much more than whether Biden approves of their vote or their dissent.

Semafor’s Morgan Chalifant and Dave Weigel seem a bit skeptical about this strategy as well. Their report notes that even Democrats have begun to question what the White House is thinking:

Democrats have fretted out loud that a focus on “democracy” is more compelling to party donors and activists than persuadable voters. Their paid messaging has largely focused on other issues. …

Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution, argued that while it’s important for Biden to discuss threats of political violence and election doubters, he’s better served to keep his attention trained on the economy.

“I think he’s missing the opportunity to talk about the real threat to democracy, which is people’s deteriorating standard of living,” Geevarghese said in an interview. “At the end of the day, the No. 1 thing that people are concerned about is whether they can put food on the table, whether they can keep a roof over their heads.”

On the other hand, the pair also point out that this is Biden’s favorite topic in his presidency and it might resonate with younger voters:

The venue gave Biden the opportunity to both talk about a topic that comes naturally to him and try to inspire voters to show up to vote with less than a week to go until the midterms, at a time when the tide seems to be against his party. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said in an interview that invoking Jan. 6 and threats to democracy could help motivate the Democratic base.

“It is particularly salient to younger Democrats who we always have trouble in off year elections getting out,” she said.

Oh, really? How well did that work out in August, when Biden delivered his infamous “red wedding” speech at Independence Hall? This well:

Yeah … great strategy, Democrats. First class.

Joe Biden had one last chance to talk to voters about the issues that matter to them rather than the issue that matters to him. He had a golden opportunity to speak about inflation that has eroded Americans’ buying power, but didn’t mention it once. Biden had a chance to discuss crime in terms of the onslaught facing Americans on the streets and in their own homes, but never mentioned “crime” either. Instead, Biden made it clear that the midterms are all about him and his priorities.

And you know what? That may be the only point on which voters agree with Biden — and they may deliver a very powerful message on Tuesday about what they think of Biden, his party, Biden’s disgraceful conduct in abandoning Americans in Afghanistan, and his hypocritical and repetitive demagoguery.