Discussing the State of the Union

 So, I won't be long on this one, but I do want to discuss Biden's state of the union briefly.

Foreign policy- Good. Great. Wants to stay out of conflict, defend NATO, but help Ukraine in ways that dont get us into war with Russia. I totally approve of this.

Economy- Meh. Talked about a lot of good things. Mostly jerbs jerbs jerbs. I agree with some of his priorities like wanting to upgrade ifnrastructure, but for the most part, it was just standard neoliberal jobism. Not my thing. Jobs arent the answer. UBI and M4A are.

Healthcare- Had some good ideas, but too moderate. Price caps are nice, but M4A is better.

COVID- This is where he really lost me. He's sweeping it under the rug and insisting on going totally back to normal. Getting everyone back to the office (BOO!), etc. All while still having some subtext of COVID being an issue, and needing to remain prepared. I mean, we just came off of a bad wave of it in January. It's gonna spike again. It did it LAST winter too. It spikes in winter, becomes more inert in summer, and spikes as we enter late summer and fall. It did this last year. He's just completely rolling over on this, because "the economy." 

Other priorities- Eh...beyond that, he just talked about a bunch of miscellanous priorities. On guns he was too hawkish for me. I don't support suing gun manufacturers or being so hardcore on gun control. SOme gun control is good. Some goes too far. Voting rights, good, but we need to go further and break the two party duopoly. Moonshot on cancer, I get it. SCOTUS virtue signalling. Meh. 

Like, all in all. While I think foreign policy was his strongest part, beyond that he just isnt my cup of tea. I just have different priorities and an outlook on life. He's fine for a neolib I guess, but if you want real change that isn't minor stuff around the edges, eh, he just...sucks. I'm sorry. I'm not a fan of Biden. I never was. I probably never will be. We need to do better, and go further. And yeah. 

All things considered, this is still better than I thought it would be. He could've gone full on centrist and abandoned all relatively progressive priorities. So he's still signalling to the left. But let's be honest, it was a lot of talk, and not a lot of substance behind it. He's completely and utterly failed to pass much of substance in his first year and I dont expect that to improve. 

 EDIT: Actually thinking about it further, I have further thoughts. The fact is, this SOTU seems to be just a massive virtue signal of "I'm for good things", but i really dont know if he will really accomplish much. Part because of congress, and part because his solutions arent that great. Like the "moar jerbs" thing is the easiest freaking virtue signal of all. It sounds so great. Yeah, jerbs, who's against jerbs? (*coughs, as the anti work guy*). But let's face it. Is more jobs really going to solve problems? It might solve some. I mean, it solves involuntary unemployment. But let's face it, it won't raise wages, it won't make the world a better place. It's just like the epitome of looking like you're doing something without doing something. Sure, he had some larger fixes too, like a minimum wage increase. But let's face it. Given the problems with the system I regularly discuss on here, this is weaksauce. The problem isnt the number of jobs. We just had a so called "workers shortage". The problem is the system that coerces people to get jobs, and then the jobs just unilaterally dictating your life to you with little to no autonomy. Your lack of pay, lack of healthcare, poor work life balance, etc., that's all the problems of work in the first place.

I'm not saying being "America first" is a bad thing. It isn't. Biden's speech was so inoffensive even from a republican standpoint I'd have problems being against it. He's literally pandering straight to the Trumpers here. I'm just saying that these solutions are a mere virtue signal and not a real solution to our problems. Much of what Biden said was just a ton of this. A lot of talk, a lot of virtue signalling, but honestly, I'm whelmed.  

EDIT2: More I want to say, after listening to other takes on it. Biden is, to some extent, trying to appeal to the left here. Like, despite me being so cynical toward him, I want to make that clear. It seems like he hasn't abandoned "Build Back Better". And I'm going to be honest, to praise him for something, he's basically doing something that I myself have been pushing dems to do. Which is to talk about their priorities. I feel like Obama didn't do this. He didn't rally people. He didn't use the bully pulpit. He just sat there sputtering about how "democracy is hard work" after getting rolled by the republicans. 

Biden isn't doing that. He was talking about infrastructure jobs and clean energy and raising the minimum wage. The problem is, he didn't assign any blame to those things not getting passed where it belongs: on the republicans and Manchin/Sinema. So he just talked about what amounts to a wish list. Good at motivating the American people. I mean, he was "peak Biden" here, but...at the same time I just know, after watching him basically compromise with congress and keep abandoning priorities, a lot of his talk is hollow. 

Again, like, I like pandering when the occasion calls for it, but I feel like this was a bit toothless in practice, coming from the president. A nice campaign speech, but not really a good state of the union.