The purpose of US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday: to redefine his presidency after one of the worst terms in American history. Mission not accomplished.
How bad was 2021? Joe Biden’s omissions from the speech were revealing. He did not mention the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. The doctor Anthony Fauci, who showed up so much in the pandemic, was not mentioned. The plan Biden talked about so much, the so-called Build Back Better [“construir de novo e melhor”, em tradução livre]of investment in national production, did not even pass the president’s lips during his speech.
Instead, he talked about “building a better America” – subtle, I know. Biden has focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a couple of his legislative successes and a series of proposals that have little chance of passing Congress divided by election year.
The two main bills he signed into law didn’t come cheap. The $2 trillion American Rescue Plan was a massive government expansion. Many economists believe it has helped fuel the inflation plaguing the US economy.
Another bill authored by the Biden administration, the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, has undermined legislative support for the $4 trillion Build Back Better bill, which Senator Joe Manchin declared dead in December last year.
From Biden’s speech, you can’t say that this project is really over. The president repeated the same proposals he had been talking about all year, without mentioning the name “Build Back Better”. But Biden’s plan is even less likely to pass in 2022 than it was last year.
A long part of the US president’s speech was aimed at his Democratic base, which will not be enough to save Biden’s dismal approval rating. Much less will it rescue Democrats from the bombardment that awaits them in November. With the exception of masks and the return of federal employees to office buildings, the Democratic president has shown no signs of changing course on the progressive agenda.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a historic turning point. The moment calls for a serious reassessment of current energy policy, levels of defense spending, strategic weaponry and arms control. Biden has given no indication that he is ready to focus on that. But he has given every sign that his biggest concern is losing even more Democratic voters, who dislike his leadership style and are unhappy with inflation and the country’s direction.
More evidence that Biden is aware of his unpopularity was the mention of the southern border crisis. “We need to secure the border and fix the immigration system.” He then outlined policies that will do little to stop the flow of illegal immigration and an immigration reform that certainly won’t pass Congress until the end of his term.
The whole speech had this dreamlike look: Biden laid out an agenda that a popular president with substantial majorities in Congress would have a hard time getting into law. In fact, Biden is an unpopular president with the narrowest parliamentary majorities of the century.
He began and ended the speech with gestures towards national unity, invoking Ukraine and the danger of Russia. He ended with calls to face the crisis and help veterans. Most of the speech was a Democratic wish list, divorced from political and electoral reality.
If Biden is to transform the presidency, conditions at home and around the world must change. For that to happen, however, he must reorient his agenda. The State of the Union has demonstrated that Biden has no interest in doing so. Maybe in November he’ll change his mind.
©2022 National Review. Published with permission. original in english.
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