President Joe Biden standing for a second term scares many Democrats. Recent polls indicate that the majority of them do not want him to.
But in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Biden accomplished something completely unanticipated: He temporarily relieved the mental suffering of those notoriously anxious, bed-wetting Democrats.
As the 73-minute address went on, officials at the White House, eagerly watching the event, began feeling a sense of relief. Once Biden started going, some claimed they could hardly breathe because they were so comforted by his amusing rejoinders to jeering Republican House members.
Not just that, the 80-year-old, clumsy president had avoided any major errors. It was the Way Biden demonstrated that he was ready for a battle and, quite honestly, still had some uppercuts in him.
David Axelrod, a former adviser to Barack Obama who isn’t afraid to express his doubts about Biden, said, “The intensity of the address, particularly the joyous sparring with the Republican hecklers, was a striking reply to those who question his mental health.” He said, “The speech provided Democrats with a messaging road map.”
Democrats have been uneasy about the president for months, mostly due to worries that it would be far more difficult for him to run in 2024 against a Republican opponent who was younger and less offensive than Donald Trump.
But Biden showed that there were plenty more Republicans besides the former president who he could use as a foil in his Tuesday night duel with heckling House members. Although doing so had been a long-term goal of Biden’s advisors, seeing it finally materialize in front of one of his biggest audiences in recent memory was a completely different experience.
According to Matt Bennett, a co-founder of the center-left organization Third Way, “It doesn’t have to be Trump being the boorish nasty jerk if the rest of them are doing the work for him.”
It’s a terrific day to be a Biden Democrat, Bennett declared the day after the State of the Union.
That a single evening could bring about such profound solace and vigor is a monument to the Democratic Party’s character. Biden has established himself as one of the most successful Democrats in modern history by many metrics, including unseating an incumbent, passing historic legislation, and winning significant midterm elections even though his approval rating was in the low 40s. However, the party laments as it is wont to do.
Members worry about Biden’s advanced age. They also point out that he still has significant liabilities despite his triumphs. Only approximately three out of ten Americans believe that the nation is moving in the right direction. Just 37% of Democrats want Biden to run for reelection, according to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
That hardly constitutes an endorsement. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas painted Biden as an elderly member of the “woke” left in her GOP response to the State of the Union, giving Republicans a sneak peek at how they plan to attack him.
But what gave Biden a contrast that Democrats were still rejoicing about hours later was the GOP insurrection in the House chamber.
According to Julie Roginsky, a Democratic strategist and a top advisor to former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, “If [House Speaker Kevin] McCarthy had better control over his caucus, which he doesn’t, he would have prevented the caucus from walking directly into the president’s hands.” But when Marjorie Taylor Greene—rather than Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who delivered the real rebuttal—becomes the story of the Republican resistance, it can only be advantageous for the White House.
Tuesday night wasn’t so much a revelation for Biden’s supporters as it was a confirmation of a long-held belief: that the party worries about him much too frequently and won’t seem to accept that he’s been successful.
One Democrat near the White House commented, “He’s the master of reducing expectations and clearing them by a mile.” “Whether the press or Republicans are lowering the bar for him, he continues hitting home runs when it counts. It’s a skill that you cannot learn. There is a limit to how often you can credit chance. It’s effective. It simply functions for him.
For many Democratic friends, Biden’s Tuesday night prodding of Republicans on Social Security and Medicare—getting them to rule out changes to the programs officially—was the evening’s most notable accomplishment. It amounted to a “wonderful master class,” according to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. Biden “laid a trap and the Republicans stepped straight into it,” according to Bennett. It was astounding.
