I watched the State of the Union speech tonight on PBS — I’m not sure I’ve ever watched one from beginning to end before.
I watch hardly any television. But there’s been an infuriating recent trend of the New York Times, and other leading “legacy media“ outlets, to display an apparent determination to amplify the Republican / Fox News propaganda that Biden is a doddering, senile old man, reminiscent of the tremulous, pathetic disgraced pharmacist Mr. Gower from It’s a Wonderful Life when he walks into Nick’s bar seeking handouts, only to be ridiculed and splashed in the face with soda water by the bartender, as the jeering patrons laugh and he’s tossed out in the snow.
Normally, I would just read about the speech, and maybe watch a few snippets of video, but I wanted to see Biden‘s demeanor, and energy level, and repartée — or lack thereof — with his audience.
I agree with most of the commenters I’ve read tonight who have given the speech wildly enthusiastic approval.
One thing I found puzzling was why the PBS cameras almost never showed the Republicans sitting on their hands as Biden delivered one zinger after another, or described some policy or initiative that almost any fair-minded, decent person would have difficulty opposing.
Are they really truly in favor of letting Putin run amok over Ukraine, and perhaps the rest of Europe afterwards?
The camera can illustrate that by showing them refusing to applaud when Biden says he refuses to let Putin do that.
Are they really truly in favor of state-mandated forced births by women who have been the victims of rape or incest, or have horrifically malformed fetuses, with no chance of survival? Really?
The camera can illustrate that by showing them refusing to applaud when Biden says he refuses to accept such a Handmaid‘s Tale dystopian nightmare.
Are they really truly in favor of taking away health insurance from 100 million people, which they’ve tried to do over 50 times since Obamacare was passed?
The camera can illustrate that by showing them refusing to applaud when Biden says he won’t let them get away with it.
Are they really truly supporters of Biden‘s “predecessor“ who fomented an insurrection in the very Capitol building in which they were sitting?
Of course, the truth is that they are in fact, in favor of all of these horrific political positions — and so many more: no restrictions whatsoever on private ownership of military-grade weapons — as the body count of thousands of innocents piles up daily; support for the most vile, murderous dictators on the planet; wildly inflated pharmaceutical prices; huge tax cuts for millionaires, combined with a federal minimum wage that would make Scrooge smile.
The list goes on and on, capped by the worst one of all: unquestioning cultish devotion to one of the most revolting public figures in American history. A physically repulsive specimen with obvious cognitive damage who faces 91 criminal counts, including for inciting an insurrection to keep himself in power, who owes hundreds of millions of dollars in civil fines for tax evasion, and for defaming a woman whom he raped in a changing room in a fancy New York department store.
It simply boggles the mind that such a figure could have any significant public support, and that his party has control of the House of Representatives, near-control of the US Senate, and has appointed a super majority of partisan hacks on the supposedly non-partisan, purer-than-the-driven-snow Supreme Court, including at least one brazenly corrupt justice.
And, according to the latest polls — whose methodology and predictive value I’m quite skeptical of — the national electorate is within a hairsbreadth of reelecting the “predecessor“ — who might be starting to serve a long prison sentence if he wins the election.
We have indeed gone through the Looking Glass, with Defendant P01135809 champing at the bit to play the part of the Queen of Hearts.
But instead of summarily firing people for the amusement of a national TV audience, he and his dark minions will actually have the power to say “Off with their heads!” and see to it that the sentence is carried out — as was done with Sophie Scholl…
Observations from the deck of the Titanic!
Great essay, and I couldn't agree more. Thank you for sharing....