• President Joe Biden gave a raucous and argumentative State of the Union address, previewing what will likely be key themes of his 2024 reelection campaign.
• Biden leaned into his populist “Scranton Joe” persona, sparring with congressional Republicans and calling for national unity around shared goals, particularly delivering economic benefits to working families.
• Biden’s emphasis on economic concerns reflects his belief that the best way to counter the GOP’s cultural notes is to downplay culture-war fights and define himself primarily around a practical agenda to lift average families.
• Biden’s speech showed a contrast to former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s bellicose GOP response, which summoned “normal” Americans to rise up against a “woke mob” allegedly erasing American values and traditions.
• Polling suggests that Biden has not yet convinced most Americans that his economic agenda will benefit them.
• Biden’s speech continued a recalibration of his promise to unify America and work across party lines, differentiating between “mainstream” Republicans and “extreme MAGA” forces.
• Biden forcefully called on Republicans to pass a “clean” increase in the nation’s debt ceiling, and pledged to veto any effort to undo the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that reduce drug prices, any legislation imposing a national ban on abortion, and any efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare.
Published February 8, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Ronald Brownstein’s original post Feisty Joe Biden Is Back
