Biden's picturesque setting with a dark twist

Elections are about choices. When elections go poorly for presidents, the choice becomes a referendum on their performance in office - one often decided in the negative.

Joe Biden made the short flight from Washington to Philadelphia on Thursday to try to reframe this November's mid-term election choice as not about him, but about choosing between democratic freedoms and "Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans".

"Maga Republicans do not respect the Constitution," said Mr Biden. "They do not believe in the rule of law... and they're working right now as I speak, in state after state, to give power to decide elections in America, to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself."

A campaign speech

Earlier on Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Mr Biden's speech was not going to be political.

But it was decidedly political.

Although Mr Biden noted he was not criticising "mainstream Republicans", who he said he can work with, he added that their party is currently "dominated, driven, intimidated by Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans".

He said that these Republicans view the mob that attacked the Capitol on 6 January "not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger at the throat of our democracy, but they look at them as patriots". It was a line that took on particular potency given Mr Trump's comments earlier in the day that he would consider pardoning and apologising to those charged in the 6 January Capitol attack.

In addition, Mr Biden made sure early in his speech to mention abortion rights - an issue that has been driving Democratic voter engagement and turnout since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v Wade protections.

"Maga forces are determined to take this country backwards. 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," he said.

Mr Biden also made a point to tick through his list of recent legislative accomplishments - on infrastructure investment, gun-control, prescription drug pricing and climate change.

"We're proving in America no matter how long, the road to progress does come," he said - and as far as progress on Democratic priorities, that progress may have come just in time for the president.

A good setting - with a dark twist

This isn't the first time Mr Biden has delivered a speech near Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

On 13 July, 2021, the president made the short trek up to Philadelphia to deliver remarks condemning Donald Trump's "Big Lie" claims of 2020 election fraud. At the time, he called for the passage of a new federal voting rights law - legislation that was ultimately blocked by Republicans in the US Senate.

From a political stagecraft standpoint, the scenery for Mr Biden on Thursday night couldn't have been more picturesque in person. It was a mild September evening in Philadelphia. The president's lectern was set in a tree-dotted park, with a fully lit Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, as the backdrop. A Marine band playing patriotic tunes off to one side.

At precisely 20:00 local time, the bell at the top of the hall rang. On its final stroke, the band struck up Hail to the Chief, and Joe and Jill Biden emerged from the building, now illuminated in red-and blue, and walked down a spotlight strewn red carpet to the stage.

On television, however, the mood came across a bit differently. The close focus of the camera meant the president was only framed in the dark red portions of the building. It made it look as though he were delivering his speech from the gates of hell - a mood only accentuated by the darker moments of his text.

His voice a bit hoarse - perhaps still rough from his recent bout with Covid-19 - the president flashed some anger as he denounced Maga Republicans who "embrace anger", "thrive on chaos" and "live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies".

There's an internet meme among Democrats about Mr Biden as "dark Brandon", vanquishing his political enemies without mercy. The visuals of this speech, intentional or not, will only feed those flames.

The urban Philadelphia setting also came with a price, however. Perhaps a block away, one of the Maga faithful blasted a bullhorn siren and chanted "Let's go Brandon" and obscenities directed at the president.

The heckling was so noticeable that on two occasions, the president paused in his speech. The second time he said they had a right to be "outrageous", but: "Good manners is nothing they've ever suffered from."

• How 'Let's go Brandon' became an anti-Biden jeer

Pennsylvania in the spotlight

This is Mr Biden's second trip to Philadelphia in three days. He was in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday and will be heading to Pittsburgh for a Labor Day parade on Monday.

Why the focus on Pennsylvania? It's Mr Biden's original home state, of course. It was also the key battleground state that put him over the top in the 2020 presidential race - and will certainly be pivotal for Mr Biden if he runs for re-election in 2024.

There are more immediate concerns for the Democrats in the state, however.

Both the governorship, three House seats and a US Senate seat - currently held by a Republican - are considered toss-ups in November's mid-term elections. Control of both chambers of Congress could come down to how Pennsylvanians vote in just over two months.

An anti-Biden protester outside Mr Biden's previous speech in the state earlier this week

Biden rebound

The timing of Mr Biden's speech is not coincidental. It comes on the eve of the Labour Day holiday in the US, which even in this era of perpetual politics is viewed as the kick-off to the home stretch of campaigning before a November election.

There's more to it than that, however. For the first time in nearly a year, the president's political fortunes appear to be on an upswing. His approval ratings, which declined precipitously following an inflationary spike that began last summer and the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, have rebounded from truly abysmal to merely bad. Bad is not good, but it's in the neighbourhood of past presidents, like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who went on to win re-election two years later.

The RealClearPolitics poll average of Mr Biden's job-approval polls, which first crossed over into net disapproval last August and reached a peak of negative 20.7% on 21 July, now stands at 42% approval.

What's more, Mr Biden's personal struggles don't seem to be translating into ballot box poison for Democrats. On Wednesday, a Democrat won Alaska's seat in the US House of Representatives for the first time in 50 years. Last week, a Democrat won a House special election in a New York district considered a toss-up. Time and time again in recent months, Democrats have over-performed in head-to-head matchups with Republicans - a stark contrast from last November, when Republicans won the governorship and statehouse in liberal-leaning Virginia and came close to toppling the incumbent governor in reliably blue New Jersey.

The salience of abortion as an issue motivating the Democratic base could be part of the reason, as are inflation numbers and petrol prices that have been trending down and a string of Democratic legislative successes - on the environment, gun control and lowering drug prices - after months of deadlock. Student debt relief could also end up factoring in, although it's too early to see evidence of that.

Mr Biden has frequently been a bystander to this reversal of fortune - because of his Covid infection and the inherent limits of presidential power - but taking credit for good news out of one's control has never stopped a politician before. Thursday's speech is as much about setting the conditions to get credit if things continue to go well as it is to highlight the threats to American democracy or to frame the debate for the home-stretch mid-term campaigns.

And if things go bad once again, he was going to get the blame anyway.