So, Biden, basically got around to finally giving what amounts to a "State of the Union" address last night. I'm going to unpack this in two ways. First, I'll give a relatively unbiased approach to it, and then I'll give you my actual unfiltered opinion, as I often love doing.
My "unbiased" opinion of Biden's speech
First of all, from a more objective perspective, it was a good speech, I give it a 8/10. He made good arguments for what appear to be progressive policies. I think that coming off of the nightmare that was the Trump administration (hey, "objective" for me means I'm not taking a dump on the guy every 5 minutes because he isn't for UBI, that doesn't mean I have to be fair to Trump), Biden's speech was a bit of a breath of fresh air. He's handling COVID, he pitched his infrastructure and childcare programs, and it resonated really well. He appealed somewhat to progressives, who liked Bernie, he appealed to Trumpers, who wanted economic nationalism and wanna beat China, he appealed to mainstream liberals. I would even argue he had "morning in America" vibes to make a Reagan callback here. Like a new leaf was turning in this country where we invest in our futures. He promised jobs, he promised prosperity, he promised a return to normalcy, and pitched a bunch of nice sounding plans to get us there. After this, I don't think that republicans have much to say, and I would argue this was so good it could potentially stave off a defeat in 2022.
My biased opinion of Biden's speech
Now that I've said all the good things about Biden, let me take a minute to shower before continuing with my own opinion.
*shower noises in background, with a faint sobbing that's barely audible*
Okay, we good? We good. Now my actual opinion. The public might like his speech (although to be fair democrats are oversampled here). I mean, I can see why. Most people in this country, do not have a firm ideology in my opinion that is unique to themselves. Most people seem to be in a boat of wanting something, but they don't know what it is. And it's up to whatever people end up running to sell it to them. In 2016, people bought into Trump's lies, and now they're clamoring for change as we move away from the Trump era, and Biden resonates.
However, as someone with a unique, well informed ideology that exists outside of the 2 party system, and have already looked at Biden's policies, while Biden's rhetoric seemed appealing, it was just that, rhetoric. As I already covered on this blog, his plans aren't that grand. They amount to a bunch of band aid fixes. People make Biden out to be the new FDR, but let's be honest, Bernie is equivalent to FDR on policy and ideology, Biden is like...half as good as that, so your standard democratic politician pushed to pretend to be FDR. His plans are okay, but they could be so much better. His stimulus could've been a UBI. His infrastructure plan is moderate, falling way short of as green new deal, although not being a green new dealer, I'm okay with that. Still, he sold it like it was, going on about JERBS JERBS JERBS! Here's the thing. It's not gonna end poverty, it's not gonna give a job to everyone. These jobs will be in specific locations, and be good for specific types of people looking for specific types of careers, the logistics of jobs programs never really work well, and should really only be done to do stuff. His free college plan was underwhelming, as discussed, it's really only 2 years of community college, not 4 years of college, he got 4 years of extra school by now having 3-4 year olds go to preK, this further curtailing that small part of freedom children have before they're forced into the education system and then work force (yeah, I'm cynical from my anti work perspective, get'em while they're young, m i rite?). And yeah. Biden's actual plans, as compelling as they sounded in this speech with all of this rhetoric of staying ahead of China (which is a valid concern, don't get me wrong), just don't seem to really live up to the hype. That's the problem with Biden here. He's hitting the right notes rhetorically on paper, but in reality he's selling a fairly incrementalist approach to policy that I don't believe will make an impact in peoples' lives.
Now, before I get jumped on, I know people are gonna go on about how vaccines are ground breaking and their $1400 stimulus checks. Okay, you realize I support giving you guys $1100 EVERY MONTH right? And affordable healthcare, something Biden barely touched. And full four year college for anyone who wants it, where you can major in any career you want, and live the life you want. Sky is the limit. And I have ways to pay for all of these things, and I discussed them on this blog. I'm sorry, but given my proposals, consider me underwhelmed by Biden here. He's not doing bad, but he could be doing better. Biden runs on watered down incremental ideas that should've been done a long time ago.
Also, on vaccines. Yeah, that's what happens when you get a sane leader in the white house. Anyone who isn't an idiot, or a republican, and Trump was both, could've gotten this done. I know Americans tend to get really hyped by the new shiniest thing and tend to fall for rhetoric with no substance, and I know that people are happy to just have someone who isn't a narcissistic freaking moron at this point, but yeah. That's how low the bar is, competence. Biden makes people feel safe. Like everything is okay, because the adults are in charge now. And he's cashing in on it. The bar is so low, that simply being competent is enough to get you heralded as the next FDR. But Biden isn't FDR, bernie is, and we need to evolve past 1930s ideologies anyway.
So, what of the republican response?
Tim Scott gave the response to Biden's speech. And in my honest opinion, it was awful. He started out with a lot of weird religious pandering with references to Chik Fil A (freaking republicans, m i rite?), before going on about how kids are losing time at school and how we should've opened up ages ago because "science says it's safe" (it's not). He's painting this very mild infrastructure bill the way I would frame a full green new deal, going on about how wasteful it is and how it's big government at its worst, but really, at those spending levels, his plan should be good, again, I think the jobs aspect of this plan seems very overemphasized. And then we get to "that". You know, the whole reason they chose a black guy to give this speech. He started going on about how racist liberals are, and how he wanted to work with them, but they wouldn't let him. Heck, that's the big pitch of this entire speech. Whaaa liberals are so mean they won't work with us. Yeah, because you republicans are useless, don't operate in good faith, and won't work with anyone. Biden tries too darned hard as it is to work with the GOP honestly, and im sick of sell outs like Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin ruining everything. We shouldn't even try. Because no matter what we do they're gonna make the same smears against us. We should just do what we want, and drag the GOP kicking and screaming into the 21st century. And honestly, I think we could do it. But I digress for now. But yeah, from there he went on about how we're not a racist country, after spending so much time going on about racial divisions, and starts defending the voter suppression laws of states like Georgia, and yeah, it's a mess. It's a total mess.
The GOP is ideologically bankrupt. I gave Biden an earful here for being vapid, but the GOP is even more vapid. They have no argument. That's my takeaway from this. All they have is lies, misinformation, dishonest framing of issues, and concern trolling. And that's precisely why I talk so little about republicans on this blog. They aren't even worth my time. They have nothing. NOTHING. Even Biden's anemic vision of the future tramples all over the best republican ideas.
Wanna know what you get when you vote republican? You get morons like Trump. And don't even get me started on republicans not being racist, Senator Scott, your team has been playing paddy cakes with white supremecists for the past four years. That's why you get slurred by the left for being a sell out. A lot of people are treating Trump as the scapegoat and trying to jettison him while getting rid of the brand, but Trump IS the GOP. He's the natural consequence of the GOP's culture. The GOP OWNS Trumpism, for better or for worse. If they didn't have Trump, some other tea party crazy would take his place. Before that, they had Bush. I notice the democrats are rehabilitating Bush now, which is sickening in and of itself, but the Bush administration cut taxes unnecessarily, doubled the national debt, and got us into wars we never should've been involved in. Heck one of Biden's glowing accomplishments this year is going to be finally getting out of the mess that Bush got us in to 20 years ago. He left office in disgrace, with insanely low popularity ratings. But now he's being treated as a good old boy. Before that, we had the other Bush, he was...okayish. I guess. Basically a 3rd Reagan term but slightly more moderate. And before that, Reagan, the dude who cut taxes irresponsibly, tripled the deficit without getting us anything out of it, destroyed the new deal's legacy, and ignored the AIDS crisis (republicans tend to ignore a lot of infectious diseases don't they?). Let's face it, the GOP is crap, it's been crap for a while. The last decent republican in the white house was maybe Ford. The republican brand is garbage, their legacy is garbage, and they had nothing.
Really, if the democrats would shed identity politics, double down on this new progressive direction and back it up with actual policies that match it, and actually take the GOP to the cleaners, they would never recover until they started sounding a lot like Biden does right now. The only thing keeping the GOP viable is the democrats' own incompetence and unwillingness to rise to the challenges of modern politics.
I'm sure some MAGA heads are gonna act like Scott's speech was good, but it really wasn't. I mean, I guess it was better than "breadbags on shoes", but still. Not great. Kinda garbage. The GOP has nothing.
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