Democracy must prevail over autocracy, Biden tells the world – even as he’s accused of autocratic tendencies back home

“We must demonstrate that democracies can still deliver for our people,” Biden said Friday via video link at the the conference.

The Rev. Steven Kinyk, a Baptist minister, agreed, saying, “Biden is bringing America back to world dependency instead of making America strong again.”

Biden’s democracy-over-autocracy message also might be a tough sale as he just controversially chalked up China’s alleged human-rights abuses, including the claims of “mass rape” of Uyghur Muslim women, to differences in cultural “norms.” And his struggle to help democracy prevail over autocracy will ring ironic in the Middle East, where he’ll rely on Mideast Gulf State monarchies to help provide the US with negotiating leverage against Iran.

Biden on Friday said the allies must stand up for democratic values and push back against those “who would monopolize and normalize repression.” Such cooperation will help prevail against the Kremlin, he said, as it’s easier for Russia to “bully and threaten individual states” than to negotiate with a united NATO.

Ironically, the solution Biden offered to address “Russian recklessness” sounded somewhat authoritarian: He said the US and the West must “shape the rules that will govern the advance of technologies and the norms of behavior in cyberspace.”

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