After 3 Years of Too Boring, Biden is now Officially Too Interesting.
The State of the Union was a rare moment of lucidity and energy from the 46th President. Now conservatives rail against him for being too good!?
In case you missed it, 2024 is an election year in the United States. In a shock to most in the nation (who, let’s face it, don’t pay attention to this stuff), the candidates have already been decided. While most of America was busy voting for Barbie or Oppenheimer, a failing-and-railing New York businessman and an ice-cream enthusiast from Delaware became the official candidates on the Republican and Democratic presidential tickets. On Thursday of last week, Joe Biden, the aforementioned ice-cream enthusiast, kicked off his presidential campaign with his annual State of the Union address.
Biden has been criticised from both sides of the aisle for being old enough to have watched the founding of the nation. A ripe 81 year old, he has often been ridiculed for poor memory/energy/speaking skills, and occasionally wandering off to chastise kids on the White House lawn (Hunter can be a handful). Yet, there he stood at the State of the Union, quick-witted, energetic, and generally well-received.
Most shockingly, he was even well received by the right-wing media institutions who have been yelling for months about his inability to do the job due to sleepiness, age and ineptitude while simultaneously acting as capo to the most notorious crime family in the USA. (Consistency isn’t important to the message). Fox News, the United States’ elder statesmen of conservative messaging, particularly struggled with Biden’s speech complaining he had too much energy.
He was “so hyped-up it was bizarre” - “frightening.”
-Sean Hannity
“No one is going to remember a single thing that Biden says tonight. Everyone is going to remember how weirdly amped up he is and how bizarrely fast he’s speaking.”
-Ari Fleischer
Forced to broadcast the whole speech live, because well everyone else was, they couldn’t cut and paste their preferred snippets as usual so they were reduced to take a common line. Sean Hannity and Ari Fleischer, leading the Fox News bullhorn for all things Trump and former press secretary for George Bush Jr. respectfully were left hanging. The issue for Republicans is that it turns out, when you run on “Sleepy Joe” and refuse to engage on discussions of substance, you can’t then follow that up by saying “When you ignore the energy the substance is bad”, so they’ve turned to the next point… Biden must be ‘doping’.
Unfortunately political anti-doping measures are not in place and the Democrats know it. (See their previous senatorial Lance Armstrong and former Weekends at Bernie-d California Senator Dianne Fienstein. ) These arguments now kinda achieve the opposite rhetorical effect for Conservative media, “he’s too good” will just sound like… “he’s too good” to most listeners left or right.
Perhaps their biggest difficulty with holding Biden to task is the ease with which Biden managed to handle their heckling during the speech. Sarcastic applause by the Republicans when Biden said he was wrapping up was shut down with his casual aside to his former Senate colleague - “I know you don’t want to hear anymore Lyndsey, but I gotta say a few more things”. Graham managed to look both sheepish and amused by his old friend Joe’s attention.
But the most significant heckle of the night was by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a woman who reflects both the looks and personality of an American Alligator. Dressed up for the occasion in all American MAGA, Greene interrupted Biden to demand he answer for the death of an American woman at the hands of an undocumented immigrant. Biden’s response:
“LAKEN RILEY, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right. My heart goes out to her parents. As a father who has lost children himself I understand that pain.
But how many thousands of people are being killed by legals?”
You’d think MTG and the Republicans would know not to try to out empathise the Empathiser-in-Chief.
No one invokes the untimely deaths of their children more often or more effectively than Biden. He is famous for his warmth to grieving parents.
Then MTG (aka ‘Marj’) used the retro term “illegal”. Democrats, especially their younger voters, consider that term dehumanising. It was supposed to provoke and challenge Biden to act ‘woke’ and ineffective around immigration. Kinda like garlic and the cross to a vampire….
Biden just threw the term back at her rather than the current politically correct term “undocumented”. Why? Well, probably because in the heat of the moment he used a term he’s used most of his life. Biden agreed that the loss of human life was a tragedy, he did so with Republican language and he called out all murders as evil whether done by “illegals or legals”. Stay with me.
As a result of her heckle fail, Greene is insisting Biden bullied her. How? By being empathetic to the parents of a murder victim and acknowledging that the death of their daughter or any daughter was tragic? Or by throwing some garlic and a cross right back at her… MTG, who built her reputation on being an unashamed bully was defanged.
Will this hurt Biden in the long run? Has his unintentional? adoption of Republican terminology on the immigration debate undermined his support among immigration advocates. A Democratic president using the word “illegal”, even when making a rhetorical point on crimes by citizens vs. undocumented immigrants will produce one thing: a soundbite of the Democrat president saying “an innocent young woman was killed by an illegal”. If that is helpful or harmful to his presidential campaign remains to be seen.
But it’s clear that immigration policy is a question Biden will not concede to MAGA.
Biden did much right in the State of the Union. He left his opponents without easy criticisms against his speech and performance other than - ‘He did so well he must be on drugs’. The right wing media seem to have become so full of propaganda that when forced to actually show him in full rather than in misleading soundbites their arguments about age, and senility don’t add up. That will certainly help him. But is it enough?
Polls have shown that left-leaning independents and even some Democrats (a cohort Biden must win) think immigration is becoming truly problematic. Adopting a tougher more Republican position on immigration might be politically astute. Check Keir Starmer and the British Labour party.
However, it can be a dangerous path to tread as evidenced by the failures of centre-left parties in Europe who took that path. It might only leave immigration sensitive voters wondering why to bother voting for a Democrat with just a less strident but still Republican policy. Oh and the Republicans will still just vote for the guy saying “Build the Wall” and in any case that MAGA gear and memorabilia sure looks hot right now.
Biden hedged his bets in the end. His team released a statement apologising for his use of the term, insisting he meant to say ‘undocumented’.
Plus ca change…
After all, like who like even cares about the charged term “illegals”, only like, American Hispanics, dude, but they’re only in sun belt states like Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, right — when have those ever been swing states???
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