State of the Union Notes
I watched the entire speech. It had a lot of meat and potatoes, strongly delivered, as others have noted. In his own way, Biden is a better political communicator than Obama. Obama is a great orator, but he sounds like an orator.
Style aside, for me the speech raised a big question, especially in light of my current misadventures in local politics.
I happened to catch a minute of the MSNBC panel chewing over the speech. Ordinarily I can't bear to listen to most of them, but in the brief stretch I watched, Lawrence O'Donnell raised an important point. Biden avoided the culture war issues the Republicans are currently flogging, including at the local level, as I have been writing in my own locale.
I find it difficult to avoid the temptation of pushing back against blatant bigotry (focused here in Virginia on LGBTQI people and immigrants), as well as the flaming lies about Critical Race Theory. But are these issues bait, better addressed as Biden does, with more encompassing appeals, along with big helpings of social benefits and services?
The culture war battles take place on a field of the enemy's choosing. Is it better to engage, or to change the subject?
There are ways to engage. Find a man whose wife died because she could not get miscarriage care. Find teenagers who were angry because their friends are being demonized. Find a tax paying immigrant, pillar of his community, who is fighting deportation with the support of his citizen neighbors. Find a Muslim physician who has worked tirelessly to save lives during the pandemic.
“ Obama is a great orator, but he sounds like an orator.”
Bingo. And he knew it himself, expressed it in “Dreams of my Father”.