SOTU Thoughts
Biden did what he needed to do.
While I have not watched the State of the Union speech on a regular basis for some time, I decided that this year’s was likely to have significant political salience, so I watched the whole thing. Keep in mind that I find the entire State of the Union speech to be largely pointless from a policy point of view. As such, I actually, disagree with James Joyner that there is anything “shameful” about it being a political speech. It has always been a political speech and the fact that it has become more unruly in my lifetime is not a reflection, in my view, that the speech has gotten more political, but rather is a reflection of how partisan politics (and media politics) have evolved during that span.
In simple terms, the SOTU has always been aimed primarily at audiences outside the chamber and really isn’t about convincing Members of Congress of much of anything.
As a general matter, I have come around to the position of my friend and sometimes co-author, Matthew Shugart, Down with the State of the Union. But I also have re-evaluated my overall view of the speech as one that is quite clearly a purely political act not much different from a convention speech. It is a chance for the sitting President to get a substantial amount of attention (but not like it was when I was a child in the 70s when it was literally the only thing on TV save what might be on the local UHF station).
At any rate, Biden had one main goal: not appearing old. He achieved that goal in spades. While he occasionally stumbled over words, that is nitpicking. After all, most speakers do stumble at times and, moreover, Biden has never been a grand orator. Beyond that, he was able to deal with hecklers in the moment. He was not “Sleepy Joe.” Indeed, the critics on Twitter seemed fixated on the idea he was too loud and speaking too quickly. One suspects that if the word on the street is that Biden was too hyper at the SOTU, the Biden campaign will be thrilled. (Or, indeed, fiery).
A second goal, in my view, for Biden was to reassure, if not invigorate, Democrats watching the speech. I think he did that. He was on the attack and did not mince words on issues like Ukraine, democracy, and the border.
The speech was hardly a rhetorical masterpiece. And yes, there were errors (including using the term “illegal” to describe the person who killed Lanken Riley, which will not sit well with progressives–as well as pronouncing her name as “Lincoln Riley,” which will be used as proof of his dotage, no doubt). However, all of this has to be judged against expectations. Democrats have been incredibly anxious about whether or not Biden is ready for a campaign. Last night suggests that he is. Meanwhile, Republicans have been making it sound like Biden can barely function, and he demonstrated last night that was not the case. I would note that that was a foolish picture to paint since it set a very low bar, which Biden clearly cleared.
I would note, by the way, that Biden isn’t going to convince the FNC/MAGA crowd that he isn’t senile. He just needs to convince enough undecideds/independents/swing voters that he is capable of doing the job. The question is, therefore, what signal was sent to the casual voter last night? And I think the answer is that Joe is not as sleepy as has been advertised.
This. It’s important to contextualize that the modern form arose alongside national broadcast media. And it clearly has evolved with and in response to national political broadcast media.
One disagreement:
I don’t think that was an error or a slip at all. I think it was an attempt at a “Sista Souljah” moment.
I might be cynical, but I expect the speechwriter was banking on that pissing off progressives and calming the nerves of crossover Republican votes.
@mattbernius: This would not surprise me, now that you mention it.
Yes, indeed.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I will say that it was an ad-libbed moment*, so perhaps I’m being too cynical. Its possible that was a prepped strategy. Or it’s Biden being himself. Either way it has the potential to have that impact regardless of whether or not it was intentional.
* – I didn’t watch the SoTU last night, so I hadn’t seen the context until after I made that comment.
@mattbernius:
Could be the case. I think it’s effective to do it subtly. Because even calling this a Sister Souljah moment–Sister Souljah said let’s take a week off to kill white people. Thinking that’s the same thing as calling someone a ‘migrant’ is just a sign of gun-nut abnormality.
Part of Biden’s problem is that the Democrats are the normie party and the progressive party and the Republicans are just something else. Upper middle-class people spend huge amounts of money on education and housing to stay away from the ideology that gave the rebuttal to the SOTU, and they do it for the same reason that one might find Sister Souljah in 1992 unpleasant. He can’t come out and say this, but it’s the real truth and America isn’t ready for that. But he should be doing subtle things to reassure swing voters that he gets whatever the hell their problem is. The stunts seem to backfire, because the Republicans are all stunts and you can’t beat that. They are not subtle, though.
Word on the street was that Johnson had told his caucus to mind their manners. Of course MTG and others could not do that. What they did not seem to understand was that they were simply giving opportunities to Biden to show that he was entirely capable of stepping away from his script and engaging them.
While it would have been entirely too dramatic, I would have loved to see Biden come back at MTG’s “say her name,” by responding “Lanken Riley, now you tell me the names of the school kids recently murdered in Iowa.”
If you’ve been reading the New York Slimes, you wouldn’t recognize the guy on stage last night. Where was the doddering old man at death’s door who Ezra Klein says needs to be replaced for Imaginary Unknown Better Candidate?
I didn’t watch the speech (I never do), but your analysis jibes pretty strongly with the couple of clips I’ve seen and the reports I’ve read.
@Modulo Myself:
Great context and analysis–I had forgotten the quote in the original incident. You’re right that applying that phrase to this situation really does represent how things have changed.
That said, Biden also has been in the game long enough to remember the impact of the Willy Horton ad in the ’88 election. And knows where the polling in on the issues of both immigration and crime.
This is key. Biden won by 7M+ popular votes last time. He only has to keep more voters in the swing states convinced of his capability in the job than Trump might lose if convinced of his corruption and venality in the job.
To that end, though Trump isn’t going to lose the MAGA crowd, there is FNC audience Biden can convince that Trump is a loser, if FNC can’t keep up with hiding reality from their viewership for the next several months.
@Joe: I honestly hope that he wouldn’t say “Lanken Riley” given that (according to the New York Post, anyway) her name is “Laken Riley” with no “n” in the middle. Democrats are having enough problems with Biden’s age issues without more own goals. I’m really surprised that the press let “Lincoln Riley” pass as simply a flub.
@Steven: It’s likely a quirk of my longstanding focus on civil-military relations that I distinguish “political” and “partisan.” Quite obviously, any speech given by a President is inherently political and that’s doubly true in an election year. As long as I can remember, these have been laundry list of policy priorities and the like. My strong preference, however, would be that the SOTU and even Oval Office speeches to the nation would refrain from partisan attacks. I think it diminishes the dignity of the occasion.
At the same time, as noted in the post, that ship has sailed because of the increasingly rancorous tone of our politics. Presidents attack their opponents, including the Supreme Court, routinely in these things and heckling—especially from Republicans at Democratic Presidents—has likewise become the norm. It is what it is, I suppose, but it’s a decidedly bad development.
@James Joyner:
BTW, I don’t necessarily disagree in the abstract but would note that I at least semi-think we need a different kind of head of state who does those duties (but that is a whoooole other topic).
That is really all that I am saying. As you note, it is what it is. I would just add that I see as a totally logical evolution based on our media environment and the polarized nature of our politics, not to mention the current state of the GOP (in terms of the heckling part).