Not even Obama violated political norms the way Biden just did.
Joseph Robinette Biden began his final State of the Union address by invoking FDR. But while Biden has nearly as much trouble getting around as FDR, he didn’t lead a nation out of a depression, but into one, and he didn’t win a war, he did however lose several.
Including a personal war with his diction and his teleprompter at the State of the Union.
Biden’s addresses have gotten longer as he has had less to say. Last year’s State of the Union was the 8th longest on record and this year’s clocks in behind Obama’s 2010 rant. The only reason it wasn’t even longer is that Biden rushed to get through it, mumbling and slurring words, rattling off threats and insults at a speed that made them all but impossible to understand.
Usually presidents use the podium to make promises and take credit for past accomplishments, but there’s not much of that here and so Biden began his speech name-dropping presidents who people liked better than him (a long list) and threatening and berating Republicans.
A few breaths after implicitly comparing himself to FDR during WWII, Biden then compared himself to Lincoln during the Civil War (“not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today”) and then President Reagan before launching an attack on President Trump.
The State of the Union isn’t a place to attack opposing candidates. Bush didn’t take potshots at Kerry in his State of the Union speech and even Obama didn’t mention Romney in his.
And yet Biden attacked Trump a few minutes into his. And then did it again. And again.
But this was not a State of the Union address, it was a fascistic campaign rally of the kind that he had been giving for years, most disturbingly while flanked by Marines at Independence Hall before the 2022 midterms, declaring war on Trump, Republicans and all political opponents.
After accusing Republicans of being in thrall to Russia and then of being “insurrectionists”, he falsely claimed that they were preventing women from getting IVF procedures. (In reality, no one’s IVF procedures were threatened and Alabama rushed through a bill protecting IVF in record time .) That was then followed by attacking Republicans over abortion.
None of this material belongs in a State of the Union address which is not a campaign rally, but a presidential review of the year, and calls for bipartisan cooperation on national priorities. No president has ever delivered a deranged partisan hatefest of a speech like this at the SOTU.
Not even Obama ever went that far. Not even Obama violated the State of the Union’s norms.
Biden’s State of the Union rant would have been more ominous if it also hadn’t been pathetic. The speechwriters reached (as they always do at these events) for the grandiose, but came off as bellicose, and in Biden’s mouth, even the bellicose became the quavering rattlings of an angry old man who had spent too much time reading Stephen Ambrose and listening to NPR.
Much of Biden’s address had to be reconstructed from the transcript because it was indecipherable. His hands and lips shaking, Biden spoke of strength, but showed only weakness, invoked historical figures only to show how unworthy he was of them.
The threats and attacks on Republicans gave way to absurd boasts. And while presidents always claim credit for more than they accomplished, Biden’s could only occasion eye rolling.
Biden claimed that “our economy is the envy of the world”, that inflation “is the lowest in the world”, that there is “historic job growth”, and that unemployment is “at 50-year lows”.
Why didn’t Biden begin by bragging about these incredible accomplishments? Why bury them toward the middle of his speech? Because not only are they lies, but no one believes them.
Since no one believes them, Biden moved on to promising free stuff. A cap on prescription drug costs, more tax credits for mortgages, universal pre-k, and student loan payoffs. With a $34 trillion national debt, there’s no money for any of that or for any of his other promises. We’re on the way to $1 trillion in interest payments a year thanks to his previous spending sprees.
Desperate for material, Biden warned senior citizens that “Republicans will cut Social Security and give more tax cuts to the wealthy” and promised to pass a bill legislating how many chips there should be in a bag of chips.
All that a bag of chips indeed.
In between attacking Republicans, Biden also attacked Israel for not caring enough about ‘Palestinians’ and promised to lead an “emergency mission” to bail out Gaza. He demanded that Congress take away our guns to “beat the NRA” and promised transgenders, “I have your back”. None of this was aimed at Americans, it was pure red meat aimed at his own base.
What should have been his DNC acceptance speech, somehow became his SOTU address.
Biden violated the most elementary State of the Union decorum. He gave a speech that he should not have been allowed to deliver. And that should have been shut down during. Presidents deliver these addresses as guests of Congress. As a guest, Biden insulted his hosts, soiled the drapes and tried to wrap his partisan hatefest in name dropping and the flag.
At the conclusion, Biden laid out a clash “for the soul of our nation” between “those who want to pull America back to the past” (conservatives) “and those who want to move America into the future” (leftists) while unintentionally giving everyone a taste of what that future looks like.
The future looks like a senile president arriving at a State of the Union to launch vitriolic attacks on the opposition, wrecking political norms, implying that a new civil war is at hand, threatening the Supreme Court and defining all opposition as a dangerous form of treason.
Americans have seen the future and polls show they don’t like it very much.
After over an hour of non-stop attacks on his political opponents while depicting them as enemies of the state, Biden unconvincingly claimed that he wants to “be a president for all Americans”. Like a small number of men in this nation’s history, he had his chance.
Biden wanted to be FDR, instead he’s doomed to be the worst possible combination of LBJ, Obama and Jimmy Carter, with all of their bad points and none of their good ones, a political hack who bungled everything and accomplished nothing, hated by everyone, loved by no one, and incapable of even convincingly lying about his accomplishments or delivering a speech.
His legacy concludes with a series of unhinged meanspirted rants in which he demands absolute power to save the country from the threat of political dissent. Americans would be scared if they could understand what he was saying. It’s best for everyone that they didn’t.
Hudson says
I’ll give him an A+ for some great lies. And overall, I give him a D- because he didn’t fall down, didn’t talk to any dead people and his normal word salad wasn’t bad. As for my vote… he can kiss my ass.
Noah Andeark says
FDR is best known for sending Jews to Germany to be murdered and for putting Americans into concentration camps. When I think of Jojo, I think of FDR.
somehistory says
I didn’t listen to him, so thanks, Mr. Greenfield, for showing me I was right not to listen.
Yesterday, I read what a guy who said he is a doctor of the elderly; some with dementia and some without. He claims that biden is just ordinary in his speech and memory, because dementia causes a person to be unable to form new memories. The guy claimed that biden forms new memories, so he’s okay in the mental department.
I’m not a doctor and don’t play one online. However, I suggest that biden doesn’t make new memories (he didn’t remember about a s significant death) and much like others with dementia, he shows a lot of anger.
When he speaks things that were not written for him to say, he’s all about the past…and even it is full of lies and poor memory.
His speech shows just how rotten is the ‘state of the union.’ Those who speak Truth are in danger of losing even more of the Freedom to speak it. And the criminal trespassers are being allowed to take every thing else….or they are being handed everything.
The way things are going, if he has the chance for another rant of attacks and lies, he may have to be translated into chinese for his audience to understand any of what he says.
A man who lost his Marine son in the handing over of afghanistan to the taliban, was arrested for shouting at biden about “Abbey Gate.” biden should be arrested for lying to Congress and the Supreme Court.
And for threatening the “People” for whom he is supposed to work.
SKA says
But remember the one true thing he has ever said to that angry blue collar citizen: “I DON’T WORK FOR YOU!”
somehistory says
He is unfit for the job for that reason alone. And there are so many more reasons.
James Lincoln says
somehistory says,
“I’m not a doctor and don’t play one online. However, I suggest that biden doesn’t make new memories (he didn’t remember about a s significant death) and much like others with dementia, he shows a lot of anger.”
You are correct.
In patients with dementia, short-term memory is the first to go.
And anger issues are common…
somehistory says
Thanks, James.
James Lincoln says
God bless, somehistory.
✝️
nicholas tesdorf says
The Democrats are now emboldened to the point that there is no longer any barriers to the implementation of their fascist policies. They feel free now to call for the persecution and incarceration of any of their political opponents in a manner that Hitler would have admired. They have set in place mechanism that can distort the voting of the American people to an extent that would have pleased Comrade Stalin. The Democrats have their foot on the throat of Free Speech.
Peacelover says
‘in a manner that Hitler would have admired.’….that reminds of that one speech he gave,like bathed in dark red and black back in what was it,Sept.’22? . That was one eerie scene. Still hard to believe we had a ‘president’ give a speech like that and of course,it was Not just the visuals.
WPM says
That was in Philadelphia he had Marines flanking him and was shouting about Maga this Maga he was barking at the moon crazy .I think it was on 9/11/2022 ,he is a senile demented old man that the MSM has been running cover for 4 years. God help us if there is another 911 type attack before election day.
Sean says
The more they keep pushing their insurrection narrative, the more likely they’ll produce a real one.
Keith O says
I watched parts of the SOTU ramblings and then saw the reports on CNN about it and initially thought they were talking about two different speeches.
The so called journalists on CNN gushed their praise for everything that came out of dementia Joe’s mouth.
If this fools handlers want America to go down the shitter, then they are going the right way about it.
James Lincoln says
Keith O,
Leftist propaganda sites like CNN, MSNBC, etc., are purposely trying to “gaslight” conservatives.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Didn’t listen to it, since I anticipated that it would be a cocktail of lies, hyperbole (the comparison w/ Hitler), January 6th hysteria & the like. Although I heard that the noteworthy moment was when he, in response to MTG’s demand, said the name of “Lincoln Riley”
40 rounds says
Joe showered with his daughter –do we need anything else?
tgusa says
J6 should be renamed to “White Selma” and once again its democrats who are the perpetrators of the unrest. Fire hoses and dogs at the scene have been replaced with hand cuffs and bars after the fact, later, sometimes much later. They will never stop nor will they ever change as It is in their nature.
tgusa says
Special council Hur states regarding biden standing trail for his classified document issue,
“Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Now we know. Not so sympathetic, not so well-meaning. However, biden is capable of making decisions for over 300 million Americans.
If that isn’t a WTF moment I dont know what is.
tgusa says
Out of the past and even more relevant today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngo_6TPgldg
joanofark06 says
Right! Good song about war right there now!
joanofark06 says
Right! Good song about war right there now!
tgusa says
SNAFU describes it. It is the human condition. God help us.
Noah Andeark says
When I think of FDR, I think of a the disgusting sack of pre-human filth that sent Jews to Germany to be murdered and for putting Americans into concentration camps.
When I think of Jojo Cabbage Brain Biden, I think of FDR.
OLD GUY says
I just wondered what drug they put him on so he didn’t get lost and not know where he was and what he was doing?
Davidka says
Adderall, by all accounts. It is also possible he had a tiny receiving device in his ear with someone reciting his speech for him.
Have we ever seen such a demented rant? The Los Angeles Times treated it as a cross between Churchill and the Sermon on the Mount.
Biden is obviously cognitively messed up and his anger, obvious detachment from reality and inability to tell the difference between truth and lie—- or care!—- are signs of his dementia. And besides, what kind of sicko forces his young daughter to shower with him?
Buzz says
Republicans do deserve to be attacked over abortion!
When you fix all the other problem we have then we will teach you about freedom of religion!
tgusa says
This isn’t the 1950s Buzz. In our modern age there are multiple ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy. We wouldn’t get a pass for reckless driving so why should anyone get a pass for reckless sexing? In the beginning they said abortion should be safe and rare. It is somewhat safe but not at all rare. Where do we draw the line on the issue? The issue should not be a big political issue in modern times.