Biden looks to D-Day to inspire push for democracy at home and abroad

President Joe Biden (Daniel Cole/AP)

President Joe Biden looked to summon Americans to defend democracy from threats at home and abroad — and draw an implicit contrast with Donald Trump — by highlighting the heroism of troops who scaled the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc in the D-Day invasion 80 years ago.

The same spot was etched in the nation’s political memory in 1984, when president Ronald Reagan honoured the “boys of Pointe du Hoc” and drew common cause between their almost unthinkable feat in the face of Nazi Germany’s tyranny to the then-Cold War struggle against the Soviet Union.