How did Biden perform at the State of the Union?
Two answers:
The right has set the bar so low, that all Biden needed to do was not die on the floor of the House of Representatives. He didn’t. It’s not what I want in a president, but if “he didn’t die while delivering the state of the union” was on your bingo card, mazel tov. You win.
It was an awful SOTU. No, I don’t mean the weird yelling, the speeded up delivery, the sporadic glitches like when your FaceTime catches up. That’s just style. I mean the truly unnecessary partisanship. The utterly counterproductive Ukraine attacks on the GOP. The miserable assault on the Supreme Court. That stuff.
There are people who will be angry about the immigration parts, or lack thereof; the abortion rhetoric; the mispronunciation of Laken Riley’s name (she is the woman murdered by an illegal immigrant); the economic mumbo jumbo, etc. Fair enough, but the details aren’t the only problem. The huge problem was what Biden believed was the right way to address the nation. The right way to use his State of the Union. The right spirit to lead the American people.
Biden, like Donald Trump before him, apparently believes that every event is a campaign rally. That when you disagree with your political opponents, you must call for vengeance. That vitriol and anger are the animating spirit of the American experiment. That unity he called for in his inaugural? That was a head fake.
I could go on, but instead of laying out what went wrong, let’s think about what could have gone right. Take a minute to engage in a small thought exercise: What if Joe Biden had stood up and said:
I understand that the members of congress here before me are struggling to reconcile domestic and foreign policy demands. Theirs is a weighty responsibility, and I know because I served with you for decades. But we are a rich country, and getting richer. We are democratic leaders, representatives of a great, a generous, and a powerful people, and the world looks to us as a beacon of freedom. I ask you tonight to set aside your differences and find your way forward to support our allies against our shared enemies. I will work with you. I will have your back when your opponents criticize you. Because when the chips are down for us, for our friends, for freedom, we stand together.
You might have said nah, I don’t think we should support Ukraine, we don’t have the money. Or you might have said it’s not our job to support others when we can’t manage here at home. That’s a fair response. But you wouldn’t have said that this man is a divider, more interested (as I said in my preview of SOTU) in politics than policy, more committed to underscoring a divide rather than healing. And that would have been great. All of us want a moment to feel good, to see our leaders trying to lead. We would have been relieved to have the president Biden promised us in January of 2021. But we didn’t get him.
It is a disgrace to use the State of the Union as you would a campaign convention. Period. And no, even our lousier presidents touted their accomplishments and promised more without vilifying the people standing in front of them. Even the worst among our presidents didn’t suggest that a vote for their opponent was a vote against democracy. But Joe Biden did that tonight. Shame on him.
A small PS on Gaza. I was, frankly, worried about what Biden would say. The President’s staff and campaign have clearly decided that standing with 80 percent of Americans with Israel and against the 20 percent with Hamas is just too risky. Hence the weird Kamala Harris ceasefire show, and new sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, etc. But actually, it wasn’t terrible. Release the hostages, check. Hamas must surrender, check. Sure, Biden parroted Hamas’ numbers on casualties, which he had previously said were lies. (See my piece on that issue here.) Yes, he’s somehow building a pier or something in Gaza to deliver aid. But he didn’t abandon Israel, or come out for a ceasefire now. And that’s better than expected.
I couldn’t watch it. Waited for the transcript. It was hard to read. I felt gas lighted.
"Even the worst among our presidents didn’t suggest that a vote for their opponent was a vote against democracy." Yes, Danielle, but the truth is hard to take, isn't it?