The Patriot Post® · In Brief: Biden's Partisan State of Disunion
When we covered Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Friday, Nate Jackson focused on three specific areas — the border, inflation, and “democracy” — while Douglas Andrews covered Biden’s naked threat to the Supreme Court. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, meanwhile, took a more broadly sweeping view of the address.
State of the Union speeches are eminently forgettable, but President Biden’s address on Thursday was memorable for all the wrong reasons. His address was one long, divisive pep rally for Democrats, goading Republicans throughout the speech, and targeting multiple and various villains for partisan attacks. It really was extraordinary.
Most such speeches make at least an attempt at reaching across the aisle, if only as a gesture. This one had none.
The editors begin with Ukraine, where Biden needs bipartisan support if he wants to send more financial aid.
But he made the dreadful political mistake of comparing Russia’s threat to democracy with the threat to democracy at home. There is no comparison between Vladimir Putin’s invasion and partisan, even raucous debates in the U.S., and many supporters of Ukraine will resent the linkage.
And “the speech was downhill from there,” they said, as he ventured into an enemies list that unifies no one. Aside from the aforementioned Supreme Court:
His political enemies list was long, and far more than Mr. Trump. There were the 1,000 billionaires who don’t pay enough taxes, the drug companies that care nothing for patients, the credit-card companies that want to gouge consumers, the “big landlords who break antitrust laws by price-fixing” and drive up rents, and more. He even hauled out the carcass of the National Rifle Association for a drubbing.
By the way, he slammed drug companies after praising the COVID vaccine that he mandated, dividing the country.
He sneered at Republicans who voted against his spending bills but whose states now are receiving some of the federal largesse: “If any you don’t want that money in your district, just let me know.” On the border-security bill and fentanyl, it was a schoolyard taunt: “You don’t want to do that, huh?”
He said Republicans want to cut Social Security in order to cut taxes for the rich. But Republicans have expressly refused to get anywhere close to reforming entitlements in this Congress, despite the urgent need to fix programs that will soon be bankrupt.
Israel also came in for a lecture about morality and civilians, a more forceful reproof than he gave Hamas. This was an attempt to pacify his party’s anti-Israel left in Dearborn, Mich., and elsewhere. But it may have consequences on the ground in the Middle East, where adversaries will wonder about the U.S. commitment to our best ally in the region.
The Journal’s editors conclude, “This was a campaign rally disguised as a State of the Union, as Democrats chanted ‘four more years.’” Lord, have mercy.