Analysis | Biden’s 2022 pitch: target Trump acolytes, woo swing voters

2022-01-09T140439Z_1_LYNXMPEI0806J_RTROPTP_4_USA-CAPITOL-BIDEN-UNITY-1200×800-1

President Joe Biden heads into his second year in office with two unfinished aims: ending Trumpism and unifying a polarized country.

To achieve both, Biden will more regularly attack the values of Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump as a threat to democracy, while holding out an olive branch to opponents, people close to the Democratic president said in multiple interviews inside and outside the White House in recent weeks.

Biden’s speech on Thursday, the one-year anniversary of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, outlined the new approach. Biden savaged Trump, who egged on his supporters to march on the seat of Congress one year ago with unproven claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, and struck out at other members of the Republican Party who continue to support his predecessor.