Hi james,
Can you remember the last time that a State of the Union address actually moved the needle? Maybe it’s because we’re so inundated with political stories by the 24-hour news cycle, but usually these speeches register for a night, confirm viewers’ prior partisan biases, and are then immediately forgotten. Unfortunately for Republicans, that doesn’t appear to be the case this time around.
(To listen on spotify, CLICK HERE. To listen on Apple Podcasts, CLICK HERE.)
The overwhelming response from both sides, albeit grudgingly from the right, has been that Biden performed incredibly well. Democrats are hailing his fiery speech as the start of a political comeback in the polls and Republicans — scrambling to cobble together a narrative — are insisting that Biden was somehow too energetic or too aggressive. Hannity went as far as to call him “Jacked-up Joe” and “hyper-caffeinated.” If they best that these professional propagandists can drum up to criticize Biden are baseless allegations of stimulant abuse, November is going to be an electoral bloodbath for them. And they have only themselves to blame.
For the past few years, Fox News and prominent Republican politicians have been smearing Joe Biden as too old, too frail, and too exhausted to perform his duties as president. They set the expectations so absurdly low that anything short of Biden wheezing, collapsing, and shuffling off this mortal coil at the podium was bound to be heralded as a victory.
Tell the media to stop treating Biden’s age like a bigger deal than Trump’s MANY crimes!
In that sense, Biden’s speech was an unmitigated win. He demonstrated vitality and held forth with alacrity, responding to MAGA heckling with wit and verve while laying out an ambitious progressive agenda. The core of the Republican Party’s anti-Biden messaging, that he is in some kind of cognitive decline, was utterly destroyed.
More importantly, Biden reminded the country that Democrats are the only ones offering a vision for a brighter American future. Not only did the president devote much-needed speech time to defending the idea of democracy itself, both at home and in Ukraine, he underlined just how overtly authoritarian the GOP has become under Trump. He voiced strong support for IVF, a hugely popular process under direct assault in red states, and doubled down in his support of reproductive rights more broadly.
Biden touted his efforts to eliminate late fees and junk fees and vowed to make billionaires pay their fair share. He also made sure to slam Republicans for their flagrant hypocrisy on the border, supposedly their signature issue. He called them out in no uncertain terms, demanding that they pass the bipartisan border bill which they have been working to torpedo at Trump’s urging, saying: “We can fight about fixing the border, or we can fix it.”
Clearly, Democrats have a winning platform this election. Our policies are infinitely more popular than the fascist, plutocratic grabs masquerading as policies on the Republican Party. After this state of the union address, another thing is abundantly clear. Not only do we have popular policies, we have a vibrant, strong president capable of selling them to the American people. November can’t come soon enough.
Stay focused, stay energized.
Brian
Interview
Brian interviews Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s SOTU stunt, how dangerous the issue of IVF is going to be for the right, and some major wins that he’s overseen on the infrastructure front.
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Glenn Kirschner discusses Jack Smith's response to a bogus Trump motion in the Florida classified documents trial.
Democracy Watch
Marc Elias discusses a dangerous new lawsuit Republicans filed in Mississippi.
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