State of the Union Open Thread

45 thoughts on “State of the Union Open Thread”

1. Lotta people on the twitters are complaining about “yelling”. But they’re all rightish.

   The official text of the speech is here, if you want to read it.

   Here’s what I liked:

   This year Medicare is negotiating lower prices for some of the costliest drugs on the market that treat everything from heart disease to arthritis.

   Now it’s time to go further and give Medicare the power to negotiate lower prices for 500 drugs over the next decade.

   —

   I’ve cut red tape so more builders can get federal financing, which is already helping build a record 1.7 million housing units nationwide.

   —

   I want to give every child a good start by providing access to pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds.

   Studies show that children who go to pre-school are nearly 50% more likely to finish high school and go on to earn a 2- or 4-year degree no matter their background.

   I want to expand high-quality tutoring and summer learning time and see to it that every child learns to read by third grade.

   —

   I’m also getting rid of junk fees those hidden fees added at the end of your bills without your knowledge. My administration just announced we’re cutting credit card late fees from $32 to just $8.

   —

   And our trade deficit with China is down to the lowest point in over a decade.

   —

   Ban A.I. voice impersonation and more!

   There was a lot of stuff I didn’t like…

   But that was the stuff I liked.Report

2. Biden was forceful, animated, willing to spar with the hecklers and most importantly laid out very clearly what he has done and will do for the American people. Independents and right leaning moderate could have found lots to like in the speech if they were paying attention.

   Will it help? I don’t know. He’s got to keep that up through the election.Report

   1. I was unaware it was happening. But that’s on me. I have a WhatsApp thread with my siblings that I only half pay attention to. We’re all in or almost in our 40s and left or left-leaning, though don’t always agree on various things. I happened to glance at my notifications and saw they all seemed very high on Biden this morning. This comes on the heels of them lamenting him as the inevitable Dem nominee. It won’t change their vote… they’d have voted for him anyway and I think we all live in solidly blue states (three of us are in NY/NJ… the other one splits time between NJ and FL so I’m not sure where she is registered).

      So, it does seem to be moving needles a bit. Will it help? That remains to be seen. Just my anecdotes.Report

      1. If he maintains that level of public appearance through the campaign I am not sure it wins him any votes but it probably neutralizes the idea that Trump despite being not much younger is somehow more with it cognitively.Report

         1. My barely informed hunch is that Biden needs to avoid losing voters while Trump needs to win voters. I think Biden’s general base of voters on Election Day is bigger than Trumps. But Biden’s is more fragile. Trump’s easiest attack path is the age/competency thing (with major, major assists from the media) so if Biden can flout that, I think he wins.

            Trump’s public facing image will also matter, insofar as it could inspire Biden voters who are opposed to him as they are reminded of why they oppose him. But that’s just my two cents… whatever they’re worth (not much, probably).Report

            1. Hard to say. Based on the polling Trump is leading including in the important swing states. At the same time Biden was under estimated in 2020, though there are those that would say Biden 2024 isn’t Biden 2020. I would add that Trump 2024 probably isn’t Trump 2016 either.

               If I had to put money on it, which I don’t and won’t, it will be that the whole thing ends up turning on mundane stuff like what people are paying for gas and groceries in October and how pissed off they are about it. Not that 8 months isn’t plenty of time for some external unforeseen event to come totally out of left field.Report

               1. I can’t treat Trump like a normal candidate and vote on normal issues.

                  I think my attitude is rare but not breathtakingly rare. So single digits, not less than single digits. But that’s more than enough.Report

                  1. As I understand the most coherent, best version of the 2016 Trump pitch, it went something like ‘There is a permanent elite in this country that maintains its power at your expense. They do it through trade deals, unfettered illegal immigration, and pointless wars, all of which benefit them but not you. I plan to turn the tables for you.’

                     Put aside whether any of that is really true on the merits. It taps into a bunch of actually existing sentiments especially strong among the kind of wishy washy swing voters that turn elections in the post industrial parts of the country. All of this of course operates in an environment of hard polarization, negative partisanship, and bombardment with constant propaganda via mass media and modern means of communication, but that’s the tip of the spear which along with a weak opponent and a bunch of other random and not random circumstances allow him to run the table.

                     Contrast that though with the 2024 pitch. ‘That elite screwed ME. They stole the election from ME.’ Me, Me, Me, I am the victim, not you, you, you, you are the victim.

                     He has his cult, and all of the hard polarization and other stuff is still there. But I don’t think it plays quite the same way nor is it as potent, especially in light of having actually experienced a Donald Trump presidency.Report

                  2. I think he’s trying to run on his record versus Biden’s. Or, maybe it’s more accurate to say that it doesn’t matter what his or Biden’s pitches are if the voters are going to compare the candidates’ records. During the past two cycles, the candidates could only discourage their own supporters, not encourage them, and I think we’re going to see the same thing again.Report

                  3. I’m very encouraged by Biden’s record. Is it every thing I could want? Nope. But its a substantial record to run on.Report

                  4. I didn’t write that as campaign advice, nor as an endorsement.Report

               2. Mundane stuff seems a very reasonable guess. It also would shock me if either one (or both) had some sort of major public gaffe that turns the election. Biden having a very “senior moment” on stage or Trump saying the quiet stuff too loudly while centered in the public sphere… something like that.Report

      2. Based on my skimming of headlines this morning, the speech seems to have broken the media narrative of “Ermagerd he’s old”.

         The media pundits love a fiery exciting horserace and that looks like what he gave them.Report

   2. …willing to spar with the hecklers…

      I didn’t watch. Was Boebert among them? One of the things she’s struggling to do is to convince the primary voters in her new district that she can be trusted to behave in public.Report

      1. Nope, she laid low. Biden sparred with Marjorie Taylor Greene over immigration. She demanded he say Laken Riley’s name but he was ready for her, flashed a pin with her name on it and said she’d been killed by an illegal immigrant. Boebert, however, was quiet.Report

      2. I was listening on NPR so it was hard to tell who was heckling whenReport

3. Pretty solid speech. I doubt SOTU’s move needles upwards much but I’m confident this one won’t move it down.Report

4. Apparently Michelle Dugggar gave the Republican response, and….it did not go well.

   From NYT:
   With a sunny, inviting smile, Senator Katie Britt of Alabama welcomed Americans into her kitchen on Thursday night.

   Many soon backed away nervously.
   https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/07/us/politics/alabama-senator-gop-response.html

   Elsewhere, I’ve seen her mannerisms and speech pattern described as “Fundie Mom” voice, which is apparently a thing although I’m not familiar with it.
   I don’t know how it plays in Alabama or inside the MAGA bubble, but I can’t see her as winning any crossover voters.Report

   1. My knee jerk reaction was that Senator Britts’ response is going to make Margaret Atwood a lot of money. Blessed be the fruit.Report

      1. I just saw a clip where she referred to her children, Bennett and Ridgeway. I mean who names their kids like that?Report

         1. I mean, no one on the left has any place to criticize any form of child naming, frankly, and I say that as a person who, I’m told, narrowly escaped being named Dustin (my Father proposed Vyrmspitter as a bargaining position in response).Report

            1. At least Dustin is a first name.Report

         2. Names like that are common in upperclass white families in the south.Report

            1. https://www.reddit.com/r/tragedeigh/Report

         3. People who don’t care about their future.Report

         4. Very, very white peopleReport

            1. Some comedian, maybe Chris Rock, said that black people name their kids after hair care products. My response was that white people name their kids after tract house developments.

               Brittany, Heather, Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook are exemplars of the type.Report

               1. In fairness, Heather is a perfectly normal name.Report

                  1. So is Brittany.Report

               2. Jews name their kids after dead relatives or what they think is the most WASPy name possible at the time.Report

                  1. Dead relatives sounds like a good schema to me, it honours the past but without the risk of causing confusion.

                     I was named after my (living at the time) grandfather but fortunately it didn’t turn out to be a big problem because he always went by Jim.Report

                  2. Sephardic Jews name after the livingReport

   2. Like Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, Senator Britt plays a certain role in her public life. It has allowed her to gain considerable political clout back home, though being smarter then Tommy Tuberville probably doesn’t hurt.Report

   3. She won’tReport

   4. Headline from The Guardian: “Republicans baffled by Katie Britt’s State of the Union response: ‘One of our biggest disasters’”

      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/08/katie-britt-sotu-reactionReport

      1. There was real freshman year acting class energyReport

   5. In the snippets I saw she sounded high off her ass or weirdly affected like someone was pointing a gun at her off camera or something.Report

      1. Via Cheryl Rofer, her voice is not natural, but an affectation which is popular in her tribal culture:

         https://tialevings.substack.com/p/why-kelly-johnson-sounds-like-michelleReport

         1. Being a Jewish Boy from Lawn Guy Land, their culture is so bloody weird.Report

            1. 40 something women are little girls, while 10 year old girls are women whose bodies are designed by God to carry pregnancy to term.Report

            2. I think its a side-effect of the way evangelical culture has isolated itself from the mainstream (mostly to avoid their children being exposed to outside ideas). The result is this weird subcultural bubble full of people who can’t sensible interact with anyone from outside it.

               They’re practically foreigners in their own country.Report

   6. Hey, Marco Rubio recovered from his SOTU response not being well-delivered due to insufficient pre-speech hydration… [Presses earpiece to hear better] Oh. Well, anyway, let’s get an update on today’s sports scores!Report

5. Biden is clearly somebody who relishes in political combat more than Obama or Hillary Clinton or really just many modern Democratic politicians. It is part of his street politician background.Report

   1. I think a lot of people forget the Biden whose 2012 beating of Paul Ryan was like an outtake from Raging Bull.Report

      1. I will never forget that, it makes my heart glow warm remembering it. Just like I occasionally go back and watch clips of Bills’ 2012 convention speech.Report

Comments are closed.