President Joe Biden gave his annual State of the Union address to the joint houses of congress yesterday. I did not watch it but the reviews suggest that he gave a good speech, with the main criticism being his use of the loaded word ‘illegals’ to describe undocumented immigrants.
Biden apparently gave a feisty speech touting his successes and attacking Republican policies and his ‘predecessor’ (as he referred to him without mentioning him by name) on a whole range of issues.
The scrappy tone from Biden was a sharp break from his often humdrum daily appearances and was intended to banish doubts about whether the 81-year-old president, the country’s oldest ever, is still up to the job.
For 68 minutes in the House chamber, Biden goaded Republicans over their policies on immigration, taxes and more, invited call-and-response banter with fellow Democrats and seemed to relish the fight.
It is a sad commentary on the current geriatric state of presidential politics that the main thing that people look for when either one of the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees gives a speech is not their actions or policies but whether they are showing signs of dementia. On that score, Biden seems to have passed easily,
The speech was well received by Democrats, who have spent months fretting whether Biden has the vigor for the campaign ahead.
“Nobody is going to talk about cognitive impairment now,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) told the president shortly after he was done.
And Biden allies were quick to use the performance to combat age criticisms.
…[T]he speech was hardly defensive. Coming eight months before voters go to the polls, the address saw Biden defend the nation’s democracy against extremist forces and repeatedly attack Trump, the criminally indicted presidential front-runner.
Biden delivered a vigorous and rapid speech for 67 minutes at high volume. He had some stumbles but also delighted his staff with the way he jostled with Republicans. He painted himself as an experienced, steady hand, even if he was getting long in the tooth.
On the other hand, the Republican response delivered by Katie Britt has been widely panned, even by Republicans. She has been touted as an up-and-coming star in the party and a potential vice-presidential pick but as Bobby Jindal and Marco Rubio discovered before her, a poor performance on a big stage may have put paid to those hopes.
Katie Britt’s Republican response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address drew responses ranging from the baffled to the satirical to the appalled, even among fellow right-wingers.
“What the hell am I watching right now?” an unnamed Trump adviser told Rolling Stone.
“It’s one of our biggest disasters ever,” another unnamed Republican strategist told the Daily Beast.
…Charlie Kirk, founder of the far-right Turning Point USA youth group, said: “I’m sure Katie Britt is a sweet mom and person, but this speech is not what we need. Joe Biden just declared war on the American right and Katie Britt is talking like she’s hosting a cooking show, whispering about how Democrats ‘dont get it’.”
That pointed to widespread confusion over the setting for such a figure to give such an important speech: a kitchen.
SOTU speeches and the responses are basically political theater and on that measure, it looks like Biden won easily.
I watched it and, let’s say, it “met expectations”. Biden was certainly feisty, and maybe even a bit shrill for my taste.
I probably should have watched the post-speech comentary on Fox just to see what they’d say; but I watched it on PBS which seemed to me to be fairly insipid.
The Republican response was largely unrelated to the speech and basically just hit all the far-right talking points…the border (all Biden’s fault), violent crime (rising because of Biden)…you know the list. She spent a good bit of time harping on how “ordinary moms” like her were hurting because of the economy (which she compared to pre-COVID). I had trouble sympathizing with an “ordinary mom” who has a kitchen as nice as hers. 😎
Bill, notice the framing, as well. The woman is in the kitchen (where wimmen belong, don’tcha know?).
The woman--in the 1% and in a cushy gov’t job--is whining about economics? She came across as another unhinged, Sarah Palin type. Further proof that the Republican’s got nothin’.
[meme]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_and_pregnant#/media/File:Barefoot_and_pregnant_in_the_kitchen.jpg
Hi, Mano. There’s a copy/paste problem with your first quote.
Yes they will. One reason is that congruence with reality is not necessary for political bobble-heads and their endless prattle and slant. Especially if the prattle is coming from a conservative.
Another reason is that Biden truly is somewhat slower than he has been in the past.
Holms:
Nah. Speediness is not competence at governance; ability to grasp the overall situation, life experience, good judgment, ability to function under pressure, reliability, credibility, honesty, historical record, actual results when given authority, all that… well, Biden excels.
(Everything SSAT can’t really manage, actually)
Oh, right. And actually getting experts, and when one does, actually listening to them, and so forth for other advisers, not least political strategists.
Obs.
@ 4 prl
What problem? He likes it so much he thought it was worth repeating. 😉
pro @#4,
Thanks! I corrected it.
A lot of tv talk show comedians have broken this down. Is Biden physically slower? Yes, but he’s physically fit--he still rides a bike and he walks (and no doubt spends time in fitness pursuits we don’t see). He clearly eats the correct amount to meet his needs, and that one ice cream cone he ate once is nothing compared to Donnie Two-Scoop’s diet. He’s also mentally fit, unlike the Hamberdler. And he surrounds himself with a competent team, none of whom are his family and none of whom keep going to jail.
Biden’s been in politics for his entire adult life and understands how gov’t works. His competitor spent four years watching tv, going golfing, and working to start and egg on an insurrection.
[Newt from Aliens] It won’t make any difference.[/Newt from Aliens]
#2,
Nothing except for half of the voting population, the majority of whom would elect Satan himself just to keep the other side out of the White House.
As I once saw it phrased; a Republican is a person who will happily eat shit for breakfast if there’s a chance of getting a liberal to smell his breath.
@ ^
Rich coming from a dickhead whose entire worldview is “anyone’s okay with me as long as they hate trans people”.
Show me where I said that I hate trans people and I’ll concede the point. Until then, don’t put words into my mouth.
Disagreeing on terminology does not constitute hatred.
Republicans aren’t half the population, though.
44% is not half, yet a lot more than “nothing”.
“Republicans aren’t half the population”
Citation needed. Republicans aren’t half the people who actually voted (since 2004), but there are a lot of people out there who would self-identify as Republican who (for whatever reason) don’t vote. Want to bet they’re not half the population? I wouldn’t take that bet.
As near as makes no difference. Look at how close the last election was in terms of numbers of votes cast. The fact that SSAT is again the Republican presidential candidate and that the current polls have SSAT leading Biden -- despite everything that is known about SSAT as a president, as a businessman, and as a person -- show for certain that what matters for Republican voters is not what they might gain (because the majority of Reps know they didn’t gain anything during the first SSAT incumbency) but how they can hurt the libs.
If I were American I’d be feeling pretty nervous right now.
You do know that most polls aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, right? Or do you just like being dishonest and argumentative?
The 2020 election broke turnout records and Biden got 306 Electoral Votes compared to Trump’s 232 (270+ needed to win). It wasn’t even a close race. And that was when Republicans were willing to be duped by Trump; his votes in the primaries show he barely gets more than half the Republicans’ votes, and Republicans are less than half of the registered voters.
Is bad-faith reading and defensiveness the default setting for FTB commenters these days? Giving an opinion, even one that doesn’t agree with yours, is not being argumentive: saying what polls are showing is not being dishonest.
Me, in comment #18:
You:
Not the same thing.
Trump received 46.8% of the popular vote in 2020 (43.1% of electoral votes). That’s too close to half for comfort. In 2020, 66.6% of the electorate voted: how many of the remaining 33.4% do you think might be right-leaning? And Trump’s primary votes mean nothing now he’s the candidate. If there’s one area where the Republicans excel it’s in unity at the ballot box; they will vote for their candidate no matter who it happens to be, while the left still haven’t figured that out. Which brings me to:
‘Were’ willing? He’s their candidate again, so what does that tell you? Enough are still prepared to be duped by him if it means being in power and ‘owning the libs’ and the rest will fall in line because that’s what the Republicans do.
So, no, I wasn’t being argumentive or dishonest, I was merely pointing out that the left cannot be complacent because it’s still too close. The Republicans may have nothing politically -- I fully agree with you on that -- but they’re not about politics any more. They know it and their voters know it; writing them off could be a desperate mistake because they are still a massive threat and need to be seen as such.
OK. Look:
Biden Popular vote: 81,283,501; 51.3%
Trump Popular vote: 74,223,975; 46.8%
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election)
So Trump got within 7 million, 59 thousand and 526 votes of Biden.
I hardly reckon getting over 7 million more votes than the opponent counts as ‘close’.
But the 4.5% separating them is not the chasm that the big numbers suggest, and that could be wiped out in an instant if the Republicans among the 33.4% of the electorate who didn’t vote in 2020 feel more motivated to do so this time.
Yes, 7 million more sounds a lot, but big numbers do sound more impressive; it’s all a matter of scale. The difference between 74 votes and 81 votes is just 7 votes, which can fairly be called close, but it is still a difference of 4.5%, and a 4.5% swing in voting is nothing. Even worse, Trump won in 2016 despite losing the popular vote by 2.1%, so theoretically he doesn’t even have to close the gap completely; just a 2.4% swing could do it.
Big numbers are cool and all, but they tend to distort the picture.
@AoS, 20:
It’s one that you’ll see repeated on this blog and others on FtB with infuriating regularity. I’ve lost count of the number of postings here where you could fairly summarise the content as “Ha! Look! Trump is definitely finished now.”
The figure that should worry people on the left is this: consider that in 2016, Trump won with just short of 63 million votes. Ignore the bleating crybabies who regularly pop up to complain that Clinton got more, as though that was relevant in any way, because they’re as contemptible as the morons who insist that Trump won in 2020. Remember that 63 million votes, and remember the absolute car crash that was the result over next four years -- the absolute tidal wave of bullshit that poured forth.
And then consider that in 2020, Trump polled well over 74 million votes. Again, ignore the electoral college or the whining of butthurt MAGA idiots who insist in the teeth of the evidence that it was stolen. Biden WON, fair and square, just as Trump did in 2016. Ignore the margins, percentages or swings. Just think on this:
Well over eleven million people WHO DID NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP IN 2016 looked at what had happened while he was President, and thought “I want more of this”. In any other election in American history apart from that one, 74 million would have been a landslide.
If that doesn’t fucking terrify you, then you are not paying attention.
And if you think anything that has happened to Trump in the last four years will prevent him from becoming President, you are whistling in the dark and fooling nobody but yourself.
I would have thought that the Democrats would have learned from their candidate’s massive arrogance and complacency in 2016, and yet that same complacency is still in evidence everywhere you look in liberal commentariats online and in the news media. It’s infuriating, and the closer we get to the election the more it looks like Trump will win, because the Democrats still aren’t fighting the same fight as him. They still think facts matter, in the teeth of the evidence. What a time to be alive.
I mean -- I hope I’m wrong, I really do. But almost exactly a year ago I posed a challenge on this blog: bet me, in March 2023, that Trump won’t be the Republican candidate. I was ridiculed. I also said bet me he won’t poll a good deal more than 50 million votes -- more than Clinton did in ’96. Few bothered to respond to that, because it was so obvious that there was no way he could become the candidate given his legal issues.
And here we are. Anyone still want to simply write off Trump as a no-hoper?
Look, you’re the one who wrote (your original emphasis) “Look at how close the last election was in terms of numbers of votes cast.”
So I did just that.
But you think it’s very close, in terms of numbers of votes cast — your emphasis.
Tell ya what, count ‘one, two, three…’ and see how long it takes you to get to 7 million.
Then tell me how big numbers only sound more impressive, rather than being, well, more impressive.
<snicker>
Sure, the difference between 74 votes and 81 votes is just 7 votes is to you exactly the same difference in terms of numbers of votes cast as the difference between 81,283,501 votes and 74,223,975.
Except that, well, counting ‘one, two, three…’ and see how long it takes you to get to 7 will be roughly a million times quicker than to get to 7 million.
(Not even close)
Or you are easily terrified. Bah.
Oh, John, your irrelevant nit-picking because you can’t accept that you are wrong is just pathetic.
Acolyte of Sagan, so, you have descended to this.
What is it that you imagine (but do not actually state) about which I am supposedly wrong?
The numbers are real.
7 million is not close.
Something else, then?
What is it, in short, that you imagine I cannot accept?
#19 katydid
Speaking of being pointlessly argumentative… you disputed “republicans are half the population” even though that statement is drastically closer to the truth than your own statement “Republicans got nothin'”.
sonofrojblake@23,
You laid down this challenge here, on 23rd March 2023. This was on a thread where there were precisely two subsequent comments by others (only one taking issue with your challenge), and one more by you, in the thread -- which totalled 14 comments. That’s rather thin evidence for your implicit claim that everyone else commenting here was writing off Trump’s chances at that point. Have anything else?