The State of the Union is Not Good

It is Mardi Gras. While many Americans forget their sorrows in the gutters of New Orleans tonight, President Joe Biden will deliver the State of the Union address. Showing how much he has lost control of his own party, he will be followed by two separate responses from Democrats. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) will deliver one on behalf of the Working Families Party, a far-left socialist-oriented party. Rep Colin Allred (D-TX) will deliver a response on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus. Republicans will just have the traditional response to the State of the Union delivered by Gov. Reynolds of Iowa. Like every other person who has delivered a State of the Union response, this will be the end of Gov. Reynolds’ career in politics and we thank her for her service.

In 2011, then Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) delivered the Republican response to Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) delivered a “tea party” response organized by Tea Party Express. Major media outlets including CNN, where I was a commentator at the time, focused on how divided the Republican Party was given that there were two separate addresses from two wings of the GOP, the establishment and the tea party.

Tonight, Joe Biden’s address will receive two separate responses from Democrats. It is one thing for two wings of an out-of-power party to give responses to an incumbent President’s address, which doest truthfully highlight divisions in that party. It should be major news that the incumbent Democratic President will have two separate Democrat responses to his speech and no Democrats intervened to shut down the competing messages to their leader. It highlights both how divided the Democrats actually are and how the media so often downplays divisions within the Democratic Party. On top of that, Tlaib, who has tied herself to the “defund the police” movement is, from what we are told, going to try to tie Biden to the progressives and attack the moderate Democrats, many of whom are already fleeing to the GOP.

Beyond that, Biden will give his speech inside a United States Capitol Building that is surrounded by National Guard troops and a temporary wall. It is a stunning contrast to the Ukrainian President who fights for his life in a Russian invasion while the American President and the Congress hide from truck drivers and protestors behind a wall and troops. It is weakness on display and political posturing designed to hopefully resurrect rumblings about January 6th to incite Democrat voters who are otherwise growing disenchanted with their leaders.

As for the speech, if President Biden were honest, he’d have to admit the state of the union is not good.

Our institutions have sown distrust and their credibility is in tatters by their own making, not that of outsiders. No one trusts the CDC. The FDA approval process seems politicized. The FBI seems out of control and irresponsible. Even the Secret Service has not fully recovered from its scandals. The postal service is bankrupt. The bureaucracy of Rome saved its Empire during its imperial turmoil and the bureaucracy of the United States seems intent on sabotaging our republic.

Journalists have taken sides, most often with the left. American corporations have thrown in with the left, live in fear of the wokes, and are in the pocket of China.

Americans do not trust their institutions, their leaders, their news, or their neighbors. It predates both Trump and Biden, but has gotten worse.

Compounding these problems are empty store shelves, high gas prices, inflation, kids who are behind in school, frustrated parents, businesses struggling, and both a general malaise and a fear of global instability.

Not only does the Biden Administration seem tone-deaf to it all, but more and more Americans find Biden responsible for it all. In fact, from what we know of Biden’s speech, he is going to double down on the Green New Deal policies that Vladimir Putin has turned against the West. Instead of increasing our energy independence from Russia, the President will demand we add more solar power and wind power to our energy grid without also adding more domestic oil to lessen our dependence on Russia. Biden will just make us more dependent on Russia so Russia can invade more countries.

Over the last week, the media ran a pile of stories designed to hit Republicans for their supposed pro-Putin sympathies. But the media’s own polling shows Republicans and Democrats both hate Putin, but Republicans want a far stronger response to Russia than what Biden has offered. The pro-Putin Republicans are either on television or Twitter, but not in the real world.