In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden praised his ability to lead the nation through many significant national struggles, drawing an implied comparison to the inflammatory parts of the Republican Party in the audience in front of him.
A politically divided Washington presents a challenge for Biden as he begins his third year in office and prepares to run for re-election. However, he urged putting aside political differences to proceed with the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and the Jan. 6 rebellion. Even if the country “was scarred, our democracy remains unbowed and unbreakable,” according to Biden.
Biden states, “America is a story of progress and resiliency.” “We are the only nation to have always come out of a crisis stronger than when we went into it. That’s what we’re doing once more.
However, just above Biden’s left shoulder was a representation of the recent fault lines in Washington. With Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker sitting behind him, he gave the State of the Union address to Congress in 2017 and the address to Congress in 2021. In that position on Tuesday was Republican Kevin McCarthy, whose party had vowed to look into Biden and his family and to obstruct most of his program.
Despite the impending impasse, Biden maintained his upbeat demeanor early on and cited his long list of successes from his first two years in office. He would admonish the GOP members to support him in “finishing the job” by passing many laws that the American people support.
To his Republican pals, Biden remarked, “There is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress if we could work together in the past Congress. “The populace communicated with us. Nothing is accomplished when we engage in conflict or fight for competition or power.
Even before starting to speak, Biden nodded across the aisle, picking out McCarthy and the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell. He told the Speaker, “I don’t want to harm your reputation, but I look forward to working with you.”
Although Biden hasn’t formally announced his re-election bid, the State of the Union address might serve as a soft debut. He presented himself as the calm, collected president who tried to reach out to the opposing side and bring some semblance of normalcy back to a Washington still reeling from the four turbulent years under Donald Trump. He will redouble his efforts to pass laws, especially those that polls suggest are broadly supported by the American people, including independent and swing voters who typically determine elections, like a ban on assault weapons, police reform, and protections for abortion rights.
Republicans would probably reject those in the coming months. Still, Biden’s advisers have hinted that he may push for a similar “unity agenda” to the one he outlined a year ago. It’s a throwback to the strategy Biden used during his 2020 campaign when he aimed to steer clear of the daily political conflagrations enveloping Trump and promised to make politics less pervasive in everyday life while leaving his Republican rival to commit suicide.
The revised version of that strategy is based on the rise of increasingly prominent Republican figures like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), and Lauren Boebert until the Republicans choose their standard bearer in 2024. (R-Colo.). Rep. George Santos (R-NY), another prominent Republican who has made headlines for lying about his whole CV and is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, was spotted loitering close to the aisle. Although Biden won’t specifically name them, his supporters think having those House Republicans in the room will support his claims.
Taylor Greene and Boebert heckled Biden last year, and pictures of their enraged yelling went viral. Secretly, White House advisers confess that they wouldn’t mind it happening once more this time.
McCarthy looms as a political adversary as well. Biden made explicit calls in his speech for partisan politics to be set aside for two crucial priorities: raising the federal debt ceiling and continuing to fund Ukraine’s defense against Russia. Although most of his criticisms of the GOP will be implicit, they are nonetheless significant. Both have already received the next Speaker’s objections, creating stalemates over topics Biden has deemed crucial to the future of democracy both at home and abroad.
