Joe Biden's "Two Americas"

     In 2004, prior to John Kerry’s nomination as the Democrat party’s presidential candidate, then-South Carolina Senator John Edwards was also a contender for the Democrat nomination. Kerry eventually picked Edwards to be his running mate, but John Edwards had a speech he often gave on the campaign trail. He talked about “two Americas,” one where some were living out the American dream, and others were just getting by, maybe. And the hook was that it was all the Republican’s and specifically President George W. Bush’s fault. Given the fact that Democrats love to pit Americans against each other, it was a speech he relied on often. On Tuesday night, President Joe Biden gave this year’s State of the Union address. The first to a divided Congress with Republicans in charge in the House, and Democrats in the Senate. Joe Biden was also talking about two Americas. But in this case, there is the one that he thinks exists, the one he talked about Tuesday night, and the one that average Americans live in and deal with daily.

     Joe Biden’s second State of the Union speech was a big “welcome home” to the era of big government. It was a massive laundry list of government programs and regulations with massive price tags and few answers as to where the money to pay for this Democrat utopia would come from. But we know the answer to that, the American taxpayer. Joe Biden also seemed to dare Americans to believe him when he told them things like, how great the economy was, how many jobs he had created, and how in fear of us our adversaries are, or what they see and experience themselves every day. And by the looks of Joe Biden’s poll numbers, he is losing that dare on all fronts.  

      He seemed to try to go back to the message of his inaugural speech, attempting to portray himself as a purveyor of “unity,” saying he was the “president of all the people,” wanting to bring Republicans and Democrats together. But Joe Biden just couldn’t help himself, and at the same time, dragged out all the tried-and-true divisive Democrat talking points, like Republicans wanting to end Social Security and Medicare. In a pleasantly surprising moment of Republicans possessing a collective spine, they were having none of it and called him out. GOP firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) even yelled “liar” at Biden as he tried the ages old liberal Democrat scare tactic. And there is no doubt that former President Donald Trump lives rent free in the addled mind of Joe Biden. He mentioned “the previous administration” or “my predecessor” several times. And those mentions of Trump were couched in very provable untruths. Whoppers about comparisons to job growth under Trump vs. Biden, and growth of the national deficit under each administration were just a few of Joe Biden’s tall tales about Donald Trump. Biden claims to have cut the deficit by $1.7 trillion. And if he wasn’t blaming Trump for the nation’s economic woes, he was blaming COVID. Placing blame on everything and everyone but himself was an ongoing theme of the night.

     Joe Biden claimed to have created 12 million new jobs in his first two years in office. There’s just one problem. Many of those 12 million have gone back to jobs they had before government COVID lockdowns that never should happened, prevented them from going to.  Newsflash Joe, you are not creating jobs that people are going back to. He blamed inflation on supply chain issues, again, caused by COVID, but also by Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. Biden attacked all the usual liberal Democrat boogiemen, Big Pharma and Big Oil, decrying the substantial profits being made by each. And whether it was intentional or not, Biden got a laugh from the crowd when he claimed that oil company executives told him they did not want to invest in new refineries because they thought Biden wanted to shut down refineries. He said he told those executives, “We are gonna need gas and oil for at least 10 more years.” Republicans erupted in laughter. No kidding Joe. This came as Biden told us that climate change was “an existential threat,” the standard description meant to scare. He also included guns and once again, proposed an assault weapons ban. And when he wasn’t spouting off untruths about jobs, inflation, his “border plan,” or tackling junk fees for resorts and travel, which no one can afford because they are trying to buy gas and food, it got weirder. He claimed that fast-food employees must sign non-compete clauses, and therefore cannot walk down the street to get a job with a competitor and maybe make more money.

     What didn’t Joe mention, or mention in passing? Things like immigration, fentanyl streaming across the border, and crime. The Chinese spy balloon was only mentioned in passing when Biden talked about “protecting our sovereignty” by eventually shooting down the balloon. And it only took a week. Great job Joe. But there were some other things that really did make the night worthwhile. It has not gotten a lot of attention, but one of the most entertaining things was to look behind Biden and watch the facial expressions of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy was the picture of self-control, even when he was trying to quiet Republicans. He looked as if A-he was desperately trying to stay awake, and who could blame him. B-there were at least a thousand other places he would rather be, or C-that he was looking forward to a stiff drink when the trainwreck was over. C was probably the best choice.

     The other great thing, the GOP response given by new Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She is the first female governor in that state, and at 40, she is the nation’s youngest. A very sharp contrast to octogenarian Biden, and his equally worn-out policies and their results. Sanders also summed up, not just Biden’s speech, but the political climate in general when she said, “the dividing line in America is no longer between right and left – it’s between normal and crazy.”

     Joe Biden ended his speech Tuesday night saying, “The state of the union is strong.” Perhaps what he meant to say was, that because the American people are strong, resilient, and optimistic, they will be able to withstand the state of Joe Biden’s America.