WASHINGTON—Delivering a stark warning regarding the nation’s future, President Joe Biden gave a speech Wednesday night in which he cautioned Americans that the ability to even pretend the United States was a democracy was now at stake. “Today, our country teeters on a grim precipice, and if we aren’t careful, it will become completely impossible to embrace the charade that we are in any way a functioning democracy,” said Biden, describing how the upcoming midterm election could be the nation’s last chance to delude itself into believing its political system was actually built on the will of its people. “Please, I urge you to go out and exercise your right to vote while you are still capable of imagining it does something on the national or even the local level. This could be the last Election Day you can call America a democracy with a straight face.” At press time, spending on 2022 federal and state races was expected to reach a midterm record of $16.7 billion.