The matter of Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech

Julie Norman, The Independent

With the most significant ground war breaking out in Europe since the Second World War last week, Joe Biden’s speechwriting staff has doubtlessly spent the last several days rewriting the president’s State of the Union address. Amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, some White House advisers have reportedly even advised the president to reframe his entire speech around themes of democracy versus authoritarianism.

Yet despite the prominent role that foreign policy will play in Biden’s primetime address, the president still needs to speak to voter concerns at home. And when he does, here’s the operative question: which Joe Biden will we hear from? The pragmatic uniter or the progressive firebrand? The statesman who, at his inauguration, pledged unity and humility? Or the flamethrower who recently declared that you’re either with his White House or you’re with former Confederate leader Jefferson Davis?

More than a year into his presidency, Biden has tried desperately to straddle these two personas in his domestic policy agenda — but the approach isn’t working. No leader can be both a moderate stabiliser and a partisan trailblazer at the same time. The speech offers Biden a chance to clarify his governing philosophy and to redeem his languishing reputation. So will the real Joe Biden stand up?

Much ink has been spilled about Biden campaigning as a Healer-in-Chief, but trying to govern as FDR reincarnate. Biden is a pragmatist by nature and training, with a 30-plus-year career shaped by hammering out compromises on Capitol Hill. Yet his tenure in the Oval Office has been characterised by a frequently ambitious (if often unsuccessful) legislative agenda, and increasingly hyperbolic (and inflammatory) rhetoric. What changed?

Most obviously, Biden was crowned the figurehead of a modern Democratic party riven by outsized and bitter fractures. Democrats’ (unexpected) 2021 Georgia run-off wins, initially relished by the White House for giving liberals a razor-thin majority in the Senate, proved a particularly double-edged sword: they emboldened progressives and raised (unrealistic) expectations for a party with no clear popular mandate.

Biden never aimed to be a Trojan horse for the left. But the pressure to capitalise on controlling both houses of Congress complicated the bipartisanship that he promised. The result: he has attempted to appease both the progressive and moderate wings of his party — but clumsily and to a fault.

Out of the gates, Biden-the-Transformer proposed a mind-boggling $6 trillion in federal outlays. His greatest early success was the passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package, which predictably devoured most of his political capital. The bill put $1,400 into the hands of eligible taxpayers, and — coupled with a successful initial rollout of the COVID vaccine — unduly inflated the new president’s confidence.

Subsequently, however, the Transformer approach mostly failed: Build Back Better — the wide-ranging, multi-trillion-dollar omnibus bill encompassing universal pre-K, extended child tax credits, new climate policies, and healthcare expansion — floundered against Senator Joe Manchin’s accusations of “budget gimmicks” and “shell games” and concerns of sky-high inflation.

With Biden’s approval ratings hovering at historically depressed levels, the State of the Union offers an opportunity for the White House to reboot, and, crucially, to offer a cogent definition of “Bidenism.” This is necessary now more than ever as crises abroad — particularly a nuclear saber-rattling Russia — complicate the president’s challenges at home.

While Biden and western allies have rightly responded to Vladimir Putin’s aggression with unprecedented sanctions, those measures will impact the global and US economies, further spiking costs of energy and food at a time of already decades-high inflation. Biden’s priority throughout the Ukraine crisis has been keeping allies informed and united — he now needs to bring that same resolve to the American people.