President Biden’s “Soul of the Nation” Speech: Watch It For Yourself
It is a “prime time address” which for presidents is usually reserved for big ticket items, President Biden delivered an address the White House was promoting as “the continued battle for the soul of the nation”.
Watch it for yourself below and discuss, but one quick note on the address from WaPo:
In what the White House billed as a major address, given in a rare prime-time slot, the major national broadcast stations did not upend their regular programming.
In the Washington market, NBC was showing “Law and Order,” CBS stuck with “Young Sheldon,” and ABC is airing “Press Your Luck.”
The speech was carried live by CNN and MSNBC. On Fox News, Tucker Carlson occasionally had the image of Biden’s speech on the screen but spoke over him and at points moved on to other programming.
This isn’t the kind of speech you make, in the setting Biden chose, unless you’re preparing the American public.
Indictments are coming.Report
we can only hope.Report
The networks: “Unlawful insurrectionist reactionaries buy sneakers too.”Report
Sadly true.Report
God bless President Biden.Report
I have two amusing thoughts and one serious… you can be the judge as to which are which.
1. Personally delighted that we’ve moved into the theatrical/musical phase of our Republic. More of this.
2. Say what you will about Mussolini, his wife didn’t have to guide him to the podium.
3. In the event the other side ever wins an election, I’m not sure how resistance remains loyal opposition.
And that’s all I have to say about that.Report
This seems to be a convention speech. It’s traditionally said that campaign season starts after Labor Day, so I assume its purpose is to set the tone for the next two months. It may have been a mistake to bury it on the night before a four-day weekend. But maybe they thought it was safer to give it when it wouldn’t be viewed, then use clips.
It wasn’t an anti-MAGA speech. I know I’m not the target for this speech, but I have to figure that the target was the low-engagement center-left. Again, that sounds like a campaign thing. If you want to brace the country for indictments then you’d drop the last two-thirds of it. You wouldn’t say that MAGA people want to take away abortion and gay marriage. Unless you’re profoundly tone-deaf. And that’s a real possibility. Because the leftier elements of his party probably object to as much of the material in this as I would.Report
I think this will go down alongside Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech,, as one of those that clearly defines the terms and stakes for the struggle to come:
“For a long time, we’ve reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not.
We have to defend it.
Protect it.
Stand up for it.
That’s why tonight, I am asking the nation to come together and unite behind this single purpose—of saving our democracy.”Report
But he says that stuff in every speech.Report
What he’s making clear is that the threat to America isn’t some isolated nutjobs, but a concerted and coordinated effort at the very highest levels of the Republican Party to achieve power, and insulate themselves from the rule of law and accountability by the voters.Report
But he says that all the time. He’s generalizing it a bit more because it’s election season, and he wants to spread the smear farther without alienating Republican voters, but he’s generalized it before too. In 2024 it’ll go back to being more personal, except when he’s campaigning for other candidates, then one may guess that in 2025 it’ll be primarily an issue about Virginia and New Jersey governorships.Report
I’d say his references to MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump were pretty personal.Report
By personal and general, I’m referring to how specific the target of the attack is. In this speech, Biden mentioned Trump three times, “MAGA” thirteen times. No criticism of Republicans, who are typically fine people and should feel free to consider voting for Democrats this time around. No specifics about Trump actions, and actually each of the mentions of Trump were:
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans”
“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans”
“Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans”Report
Yes.
He’s offering Americans a choice.
Side with American democracy and the rule of law, or the MAGA Republicans.Report
Did you reply to the right comment?Report
Dork Brandon Rises.Report
I thought it was an interesting hybrid of a convention speech and a call to action speech. The only interesting thing I have to add that hasn’t been already commented on is that Biden specifically didn’t mention student debt relief in his laundry list of accomplishments. I’m glad he didn’t and think this is an indication that they aren’t enthralled to the twitter left like so many in the media, right and center love to pretend. An administration that drank their own kool-aid would have trumpeted the debt relief along side all the other things.Report
The student loan bone has been thrown. Now let us never speak of it again.Report
Short of not throwing the bone (absent addressing the root problem), about the best one can hope for.Report
Would have been pretty awkward to mention that in the same speech where he talked about respecting the Constitution and the rule of law.Report
Eh, far as I can see it’s constitutional. It’s not a very good policy but illegal? Hardly.Report
Putting aside for a minute the question of whether the Constitution technically allows this, Biden’s actions demonstrate contempt for the Constitution and rule of law. He swore an oath to uphold the Constitution to the best of his ability, not to push its boundaries to see how much he can get away with.
Consider court packing. I don’t think anybody disagrees that, due to an unfortunate oversight, there is a loophole that allows court-packing as a way to do an end run around judicial review. Nevertheless, this is a direct attack on one of the bedrock principles of the Constitution, namely the division of powers.
So something can be technically Constitutional and still totally inconsistent with respect for the Constitution and rule of law.
On the question of whether Biden’s loan cancellation is unconstitutional, I think that there’s a pretty solid argument that he’s violating the full faith and credit clause. I expect the Supreme Court to shoot this down, given that law and ideology align here. Arguably the entire federal student loan program falls outside of Congress’s enumerated powers as well, but that ship has already set sail.Report
Heh, maybe he should have just unilaterally reallocated some appropriated military spending and declared it was going to be used to pay off all the student debts he’s forgiving. Did the courts rule that as unconstitutional?Report
I really dissent on your bugbear here. The evidence is that this policy is not helping the rich but is targeted at people with middlr-class or lower incomes.Report
Doing student debt relief without pairing it with something to bring the general problem of universities administrative bloat and the specific problems of grift school con artists to heel is simply a bad policy. I support Biden doing it because he promised to do it and it’s good he keep his promises but let’s not pretend it’s one of the better policies he’s pushed. Bidens peeps tried to tilt it towards lower income debtors with means testing and the like but it’s still a regressive policy.
And he knows it, otherwise he’d have been trumpetting it along with his other accomplishments. Good for Biden to be self aware about it. It’s base service and best not rubbed in the face of people in general.Report
51 percent of Americans support student debt relief:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3623055-majority-backs-student-loan-debt-relief-poll/amp/Report
20 Mins in….Swap MAGA and other references to the right with similar references to the far left, and I’d think a republican was talking. Not a bad breakdown of the differences between the two groups. The only real question is whether or not international issues or domestic issues will be the spark for the next civil war, because given all the hate on each side, I don’t think the question is IF but WHEN it happens. For a long time I figured I’d be dead before that happened, now, not so much.Report
Biden is a neoliberal centerist, so he uses a lot of language that old school Republicans used to use as well.Report
He is not a neoliberal centerist unless you are using neoliberal in the sense of it just being an insult to people you don’t fully agree with. He is a middle of the road, weather vane Democrat who can sense where the party is going.
Joe Manchin is a true neoliberal in that he seems to think private market solutions are always best and the government should just dull the sharper edges a bit. This is not and has never been Biden.Report
It is, as always fun to see the right-wing noise machine respond: much hand-wringing that Trump was never this divisive. The tweet that said Hitler was never this divisive has been deleted. Fine calibration achieved.Report