On Thursday, President Joe Biden went hammer and tongs against the man he succeeded in the White House four years later but refused to mention his name. Not once but over a dozen times. On Friday, in Philadelphia where he made his first pit stop in Pennsylvania as he hit the campaign trail, post Super Tuesday, he was not shy of naming his opponent.
“MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump want to pass a national ban on the right to choose, period,” he said about protecting access to reproductive rights. In other words, abortion. For good measure, he added, in case his Philly audience had not heard what he said during his combative and feisty State of the Union address Thursday, “Hear me loud and clear, this will not happen on my watch.”
The Democrats would like to believe the State of the Union address has resulted in a resurrection of President Biden’s evidently sagging image. He is fighting to shrug off an unprecedentedly low rating of 37 per cent, as per NBC News polling which is way below what his recent predecessors managed in their respective second-term bids, all conducted in January. In 2020, Trump had 46 per cent rating, while in 2012 Barack Obama had 48 per cent.
Thus, when he thundered fire and brimstone like a prophet from the Old Testament, Biden had a lot of ground to cover by way of consolidating his image. The jury is still out on what his net gain has been post Thursday; the verdict that is beginning to be heard from across the nation, initially one of real surprise caused by Biden 2.0, is far from unanimous, unlike what his campaign managers would like to believe.
Biden’s State of the Union address, in all probability the last one before the November elections, ran through a gamut of issues where there is little union between the Democrats and the Republicans. It ranged from the country’s robust economy, with stress on low unemployment and the need for higher taxation of the rich, social security, affordable education, Medicare and housing to equitable immigration laws, foreign policy, infrastructure laws and a ban on assault weapons. gun control. A revisit of laws governing abortion and open access to IVF led the checklist.
To be fair, in the build-up to his much-anticipated address to the nation from Capitol Hill, it was widely held that more than what he would say, the key to his chances for a second term as President, was going to be about how he said it. That is precisely what his team seems to have focused on, with much success.
Biden came across as a sprightly old man, bristling with oodles of energy, at least enough of it to complete an hour-long speech where he gamely took on the Republicans, even ad-libbing numerous times. Therefore, it was quite surreal to watch someone whose image in the past few months was of a tired old man, suddenly so full of vigour and vitality, that there were cheeky, uncharitable queries from Mar-a-Lago as to what drug he was on.
Tell-tale evidence about a preoccupation regarding concerns about his age came across in his speech when he referred to Trump who is four years younger as “Some other people of my age.” Yet, Biden kept scoring brownie points at will, as he took potshots at his predecessor as one who could love his country only when he won elections; that his American story was one of “resentment, revenge and retribution.”
Trump, of course, during the last four years has been painting a picture of contemporary America, the one without him at the helm, as a horror show and a disaster, headed to guaranteed disaster. He has not been shy of projecting himself as the lone man capable of saving Americans from the apocalypse that was facing them, with “Sleepy Joe” leading the nation.
Friday, Biden raised concerns about the threat Trump posed to democracy, asked his supporters in Philadelphia, “You know (who) he is meeting with today at Mar-a-Lago? Orban (Prime Minister Viktor Orban) of Hungary, who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works…I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it.”
This was but an extension of his State of the Union address, which Biden had thus begun, referring to President Franklin Roosevelt speaking to the nation in 1941 when Hitler was on the march and freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.
“Now it is we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union. Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault, both at home and overseas, at the very same time. Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. But now assistance for Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world. “
“It wasn’t that long ago when a Republican President, Ronald Reagan, thundered, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Now, my predecessor, a former Republican President, tells Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you want.’ A former American President actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. It’s outrageous. It’s dangerous. It’s unacceptable,” Biden had said, at one stroke painting Trump with the same brush as Hitler and as a crony of Putin. Then he went on strike a nasty blow, after saying that unlike Trump, he will not bow down to Putin as history was watching.
“Just like history watched three years ago on January 6th. Insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy. We all saw with our own eyes these insurrectionists were not patriots. They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power and to overturn the will of the people. January 6th and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War. But they failed. America stood strong and democracy prevailed. We must be honest, the threat remains and democracy must be defended. My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth of January 6th. I will not do that. This is a moment to speak the truth and bury the lies. And here’s the simplest truth. You can’t love your country only when you win,” said Biden, even as US Speaker of the House, who presided over the address along with Vice President Kamala Harris, continued to shake his head in disapproval, keeping the frown and pursed lips.
It cannot get any clearer than this. We know how the Democrats are going to mount an offensive against Trump, heading onto November. Just as clear it is, how the Republicans are going to tear into Biden, painting him as indecisive, docile, citing as much Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza as the US policy on Ukraine. The rhetoric, from both camps, can only get shrill and the attacks, more and more personal. There will be much mudslinging. It will be a slugfest, with neither willing to yield any quarter to the other. As 81-year-old Biden takes on 77-year-old Trump, both would claim they have rediscovered their youthful ways in their advanced years.
Meanwhile, the sight of VP Harris leaping up from her chair on Thursday had clear overtones of a never-tiring cheerleader. Sitting alongside her, Speaker Johnson managed to pull off a Dickensian Scrooge-like mournful demeanour, arguably in disapproval of what he said was a partisan and vitriolic speech by Biden. And the Republican riposte by Alabama Senator Katie Britt to Biden, in a bid to connect with American families appeared to have been inspired by the Theatre of the Absurd, pitched her as if she was too busy in the kitchen, yet found time to provide a reality check on Biden’s claims.
In sum, there were quite a few elements considered mandatory by Hollywood. We have the protagonist, no matter his fresh octogenarian status, as we know Clint Eastwood can still pull it off as a hero. The identity of the anti-hero, a robust septuagenarian, remains hidden, up to a certain point. Then there is the suspense motif, as we won’t know for nearly nine more months who is destined to triumph in this battle of high stakes, where the winner takes control of the US.
The story is built around the primordial emotions of revenge and retribution. There are two factions, one cheering and other booing as the story unfurls, not unlike movies portraying rival gangs in one of those dance competitions. There are prima donnas, sopranos, action heroes, character actors and comedians. It has all the makings of a box office hit, when the ballots are finally counted.
(The author is a senior journalist from India, who is now a permanent resident of the US, in Washington DC and is an author of the two books)