Erickson: Pay Closer Attention to Biden's SOTU Speech and You'll See What It Was Really Designed For
By now you may have forgotten that President Joe Biden gave his State of the Union address this week.
On Monday, Biden walked across the White House lawn alone and in a mask. On Tuesday, he walked into a crowd of House members rejoicing that no more masks were needed. It was the perfect metaphor for Biden at speech and Biden at governance.
First, forgive Biden for his flubs and twisted words. He is almost 80 and has a stuttering problem. As someone who grew up with a stutter, I’m sympathetic. He is neither Cicero nor Churchill, King nor Kennedy. He is Joe from Scranton. The problem was not the words or delivery. The problem was the message.
The State of the Union address was not for me or for you unless you are a moderate, Democrat-leaning voter who is frustrated with Biden and looking at the GOP for November. Despite all the talk about multiple audiences, Biden is trying to keep wavering moderate voters on board.
He hit on, for example, securing the border. That’s an issue he has done nothing to address, but it shows up in polling as a problem for Democrats, so he mentioned it. He mentioned funding police, too, another area in which voters trust Republicans more than Democrats. Biden needs to reassure suburban voters that he is not as radical as the loudest Democratic representatives.
He called the Afghanistan withdrawal an “extraordinary success,” but it polls terribly for him, so he chose not to spend time on it. After opening on Ukraine, the whole of the speech sounded like it was written by pollsters panicked by the GOP’s current numbers.
The problem for Biden and the Democrats is simple. This speech is going to be forgotten — if it hasn’t been forgotten already — but the public will still see empty store shelves, high prices and the rising cost of filling up their cars. The president offered nothing to address these issues. In fact, it is now widely accepted that his coronavirus relief package sparked inflation; the president not only defended it but called for even more spending.
Biden started with unifying comments about Ukraine. He got applause from both Republicans and Democrats. He then pivoted straight into an attack on the Trump tax cuts with a lie about those cuts benefiting the top 1 percent. Even the supposed fact-checkers rebut that.
He continued to call on Congress to pass a failed agenda and to advocate for positions most Americans reject. There was no reset. He doubled down on progressivism. He doubled down on growing government. He refused to offer gas price relief and instead announced he wants to expand the Green New Deal.
Forget the flubs. Forget the stumble over “Iranians” instead of “Ukrainians,” etc. This is Biden.
The problem with the speech was that he offered Americans a vision they’ve already rejected and bookended it with calls for unity after pushing policies that led to people getting fired for not taking a vaccine.
It is really hard to tell Americans we need to get past our differences after spending two years maligning those who wouldn’t go along with his agenda. A few months ago, Biden said Americans who opposed his agenda were on the side of Jefferson Davis and those who did not get the vaccine were in for a winter of death.
Now, at 40 percent in some polls, he is calling for unity and urging people to stop politicizing the pandemic. But he never offered an apology for his own harsh words and his about-face comes only after leaked Democratic polling showing the public is ready to get on with life.
This speech offered no reset. It offered no new vision. It offered no olive branches. It was patently designed to rally Democrats and hopefully get moderates back on board.
The president may get a bump in the polls over Ukraine, but that will be trumped by high gas prices and bare shelves.
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