The big problem with the #Biden State of the Union speech was that instead of speaking to the whole country about the whole country, it focused on speaking to his own choir about himself and his reelection.
That's why people are criticizing it as a campaign speech.
If you're a Biden supporter, realize that the speech did not invite non-supporters, including independents, to join in his efforts. It appealed only to those already on board, which is not productive in terms of actually getting those efforts done.
In other words, if you're in favor of what Biden was calling for, you too should be critical that this #SOTU won't help get those things done.
The speech seemed focused on helping nobody... except Joe Biden's personal reelection.
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I strongly disagree with your stance. I've just watched it again.
This was one of the most inspiring presidential speeches I've ever heard.
#Biden has a clear focus of the things he wants to accomplish and the many things he has in fact accomplished, in contrast to many other nations, e.g. leading the most successful rebound of any big country, in contrast to #China and many #EU countries.
He has a completely hostile "#Republican"...
@HistoPol I'm actually in agreement: he has a clear focus of the things HE wants to accomplish.
Not the country, not what the democratic process might accomplish, not what he might be able to grow consensus around, not even what the law might allow.
His speech was a long list of the things HE says he wants to accomplish.
That's exactly the criticism I'm leveling at him.
I don't think it's inspiring. It's authoritarian, of anything, but mainly it's just out of touch.
He wants to do all sorts of things. That's nice. However, he's still only president and subject to both that reality, and the realities of, well reality as well.
And that's exactly why this missed the mark as a SOTU speech.
It'd be fine as a campaign speech to his people, though, where he can make promises that he won't keep.
@Lassielmr I think the best way to consider the SOTU speech is to ignore any sense of ideology or philosophy or statesmanship or anything like that.
The guy is having trouble in the polls among his own base, so he decided to use this giant platform to target specific audiences to try to win their favor, regardless of anything rational or realistic.
So he might be all of the things you list, but in this particular speech, none of that mattered he was just trying to pander to a particular group of voters, who themselves might be out of touch and all the rest 🙂
It was very unbecoming, very inappropriate for the event, but the people who would care about such things the most already won't vote for him no matter what.
@volkris @HistoPol watching from Europe the general consensus here was Biden is out of touch, living in the past and not in the slightest progressive. It was like a speech from the 50s/60s. Now, we’ve no horse in this race, just observers, but what a crap choice you have.