“Go get him!” US President Joe Biden closed his first State of the Union address on Tuesday evening with a rallying cry and a clenched fist. There is no mistaking who was the ‘him’ to be caught: the autocrat Vladimir Putin, whose Russian troops are trying to conquer Ukraine.
It was as if this latest major crisis that Biden faces in his short presidency — in addition to the swamps of the pandemic and the tumultuous waves of economic recovery — gave the 79-year-old politician added impetus. In the eleven minutes of his more than an hour-long ‘throne speech’ that Biden devoted to the war in Ukraine, he received open canvases from Democrats and Republicans.
He announced that the United States, like European countries, will close its airspace to all Russian flights. He told oligarchs that their yachts, their luxury apartments and their private jets will be taken. He took diplomatically modest credit for forging the allies together (“even Switzerland”). He said that while US troops will certainly not fight “in Ukraine”, they will defend “every inch” of NATO territory.
The unanimous cheer in the House of Representatives was over from the moment Biden made his bridge to domestic issues. “A Russian dictator invading another country costs the rest of the world.” Still, Biden did not dare to prepare the Americans for, for example, even higher gasoline prices, which are widely expected as a result of the Ukraine crisis. Biden said a coalition of 30 countries is releasing 60 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserve to mitigate price increases — not very impressive when you consider that the US alone consumes some 17 million barrels of oil per day.
“I understand,” Biden said of the pain of inflation, which is “taking bites out of rising wages.” His answer: higher government spending to lower costs for citizens. There was the first boo from the Republican attendees, who foresee a driver of inflation in higher government spending.
Biden promised to pay for childcare, medicine and home insulation costs. They are old promises that make you wonder how seriously Americans still take them. Biden managed to get two major bills passed as president: a package of corona measures and infrastructure investments. That was it, and it’s highly doubtful that his fallen mega-law ‘Build Back Better’ will ever get a second chance. It was noticeable that Biden did not once say the phrase, a key phrase from his campaign, on Tuesday. Instead, he spoke of “building a better America.”
Disastrous reports
The only times Republicans stood up to applaud the president was when the president took more “right-wing” stances, promising to “secure the border and make good immigration policies.” He was vague, not mentioning last year’s proliferation of detained migrants trying to enter the US without papers — a record increase that Republicans are grateful for.
Biden emphasized that he will not cut back on the police, that he does not intend to “defund the police”, a left-wing slogan from the 2020 protest year, but instead wants to allocate more money for the police. They were clear attempts to steer clear of the far-left image that Republicans are trying to foist on his administration in an election year. Apparently Biden feels safe on the left side of the spectrum and vulnerable in the political center where most voters are.
This speech was therefore inseparable from the disastrous reports that are being polled for Biden. To be approval rating has fallen steadily since the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and is now as low as Donald Trump’s around the same stage of his term in office. An opponent like Vladimir Putin is manageable for Biden. He has repaired and strengthened ties with America’s allies, also damaged by Afghanistan. Putin’s isolation can credit Biden as a gain. The president actually said at the end of his speech: “I am more optimistic about America than I have ever been.”