AMAC EXCLUSIVE
Historically, it takes a few days for State of the Union addresses to crystalize in the eyes of American voters and the political media class. Viewers often need time to process what they have seen and heard. Biden’s 2024 State of the Union, however, may defy this trend.
Though State of the Union speeches have traditionally been used as opportunities to appeal to sentiments of bipartisanship and call forth a spirit of American unity rather than grind a political axe, this year, Joe Biden delivered an uncharacteristically fire-and-brimstone speech that can be only described as by far the most jarringly partisan State of the Union address in American history. In doing so, Biden has outed himself as a left-wing extremist desperate to reassure rank-and-file Democrat voters that he is up to the task of competing in the general election this November.
Despite having campaigned on themes of unity, bipartisanship, and decency in 2020, on Thursday evening, Biden spent his third—and potentially final—State of the Union address primarily taking flagrant partisan swings at Donald Trump.
Biden opened his remarks not with a unifying vision or a litany of his perceived accomplishments, but instead with bleak imagery and doomsday rhetoric about World War II and impending threats to “democracy” both at home and abroad.
“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today,” Biden warned. “What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time.”
The president then immediately pivoted to discussing the urgency of providing funding for Ukraine—a highly contentious national topic—before not-so-subtly suggesting that the prospect of a second Trump term is just as dangerous for the causes of “freedom” and “democracy” as Russia’s war in Ukraine and Adolf Hitler’s conquest of Europe.
Referring to Trump as his “predecessor” 13 times throughout the course of his hour-and-a-half speech, Biden accused the presumptive Republican nominee of cozying up to Vladimir Putin, supporting “insurrectionists”, conspiring with Republican elected officials to aggravate the border crisis, and failing to deliver on key promises on the economy, manufacturing, and China.
But Biden’s shots at Trump were far from the most partisan moments of his remarks. In a particularly grating part of the speech, Biden took the unprecedented step of addressing—and shrewdly threatening—the U.S. Supreme Court justices in attendance directly when discussing his support for a national right to abortion-on-demand.
“And with all due respect, justices, women are not without electoral power—excuse me, electoral or political power,” Biden said. “You’re about to realize just how much you were wrong about that.”
Biden spent the remainder of his remarks blatantly lying about Republican policy goals and preposterously embellishing his own record. He falsely stated, for instance, that Republicans in Congress want to put Social Security “on the chopping block” while giving “tax breaks to the wealthy”—an outright lie that elicited a chorus of boos from the Republican side of the chamber. He went on to cynically accuse the GOP of “playing politics” by derailing his border bill, which if passed, would have done nothing to stop the mounting influx of illegal aliens pouring across the southern border.
And despite Biden’s cumulative inflation rate of nearly 20 percent, plummeting wages, soaring mortgage rates, and rising energy prices, Biden deceptively doubled down on the supposed successes of “Bidenomics,” stating that America has the “best economy in the world”—even though the overwhelming majority of Americans feels differently.
To make matters worse for Biden, he had difficulty getting through much of the prepared remarks—often slurring his words and trailing off into incomprehensible rants. For instance, he stated that “The threat to democracy must be defended”—and later referred to Laken Riley, the woman recently murdered by an illegal alien in Georgia, as “Lincoln Riley.”
Though Joe Biden continues to flounder in national and state-level polling just eight months before the November election, his extraordinarily partisan remarks should be seen as a sign that he—and his handlers—are afraid that he could be dumped from the ticket in favor of a younger candidate with broader electoral appeal.
Though he may have succeeded in reassuring the Democrat base of his commitment to upholding the progressive agenda, most Americans almost certainly walked away from the speech with a newfound realization of Biden’s extremism.
Unfortunately for Biden and the Democrats, the mask is finally off—and voters can clearly see the radicalism of the Biden administration for what it truly is.
Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.
