{"id":1543604,"date":"2024-03-08T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2024\/03\/biden-state-of-the-union\/"},"modified":"2024-03-08T17:32:50","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T17:32:50","slug":"bidens-state-of-the-union-showcased-a-president-in-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/03\/08\/bidens-state-of-the-union-showcased-a-president-in-denial\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s State of the Union Showcased a President in Denial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Look past the theatrics of a feisty, bellowing president and reactionary hecklers. Joe Biden\u2019s State of the Union address didn\u2019t offer working-class people a clear economic alternative or signal real opposition to Israel\u2019s brutal war in Gaza.<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\n US president Joe Biden delivers the annual State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the Capital building on March 7, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Shawn Thew-Pool \/ Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

Last night\u2019s State of the Union (SOTU) address made official what we\u2019ve heard now from countless pieces of reporting: despite every warning sign about his handling of both the economy and Israel\u2019s genocide in Gaza, President Joe Biden will continue stubbornly doubling down on his approach to both \u2014 despite the majority of both official and public opinion rejecting his handling of the two issues.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s address saw the welcome infusion of pro-worker, economically populist notes that Biden has historically been allergic to. He invited and shouted out United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain to the event, called out billionaires for paying too little in taxes, and once again attacked the GOP for their plans<\/a> to cut Social Security and Medicare.<\/p>\n

But a closer read of the speech suggests that, rhetoric aside, the president is continuing to resist pressure, both from the streets and from within his own governing coalition, to change course on his handling of the Israeli war and to run on an ambitious progressive platform akin to the one he won the 2020 election. That could spell continuing trouble for the president, whose prospects at this early point in the campaign look dismal.<\/p>\n\n \n\n \n \n \n

An Unusual Economic Comeback<\/h2>\n \n

Reportedly mystified<\/a> by Americans\u2019 economic dissatisfaction<\/a> and convinced<\/a> the problem is simply pessimistic media coverage, recent reports have indicated Biden\u2019s reelection plans are to simply keep insisting the economy is in great shape, while putting the lion\u2019s share of his energy toward hammering Donald Trump over January 6. This was more or less what we got last night.<\/p>\n

The United States today is embroiled in a slow-burning economic crisis: child poverty has seen a record-high spike<\/a>; homelessness has soared<\/a> to never-before-seen levels; cost-burdened renters are at an all-time high<\/a>; evictions are back<\/a> to pre-pandemic levels; and food insecurity is rising<\/a> for the first time in a decade. The president of the Oregon Food Bank recently declared<\/a> that \u201cwe are living through the worst rates of hunger since the Great Depression,\u201d just one of countless food pantries around the country that has seen demand for their help explode<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You would have no idea any of this is happening from listening to the president\u2019s speech last night, in which he boasted that \u201cour economy is literally the envy of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t make news, but in a thousand cities and towns, the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told,\u201d Biden said last night, at a time when financial stress over high prices is through the roof<\/a> across the country: \u201cMore people have health insurance today than ever before,\u201d he boasted, even as he has presided over nearly eighteen million<\/a> Americans losing their Medicaid coverage, the vast majority of them (70 percent) eligible for the program, but thrown off for procedural reasons enabled by his administration.<\/p>\n

Biden laid out some plans to address these struggles: capping the price of insulin for all<\/em> Americans, instead of just those on Medicare (something Democrats could<\/a> have done<\/a> two years ago but didn\u2019t<\/a>); expanding the number of drugs whose prices Medicare can negotiate to five-hundred (albeit over the course of a decade); a $400-a-month tax credit to help homeowners, though not renters, pay their mortgage costs, which have soared<\/a> to a median of nearly $1,800 a month.<\/p>\n

But the ambitious promises of Biden\u2019s 2020 campaign, like the public health insurance option he occasionally mentioned on the trail then immediately dropped<\/a> upon winning, now seem forgotten. So are popular provisions of Biden\u2019s never-passed Build Back Better (BBB) bill, like lowering the Medicare eligibility age and universal pre-K, which, respectively went either entirely unmentioned or watered down with wishy-washy language (\u201cproviding access to pre-school\u201d). Bernie Sanders reportedly urged<\/a> Biden to make lowering the Medicare age and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in the program part of his 2024 platform. Neither made their way into the speech last night.<\/p>\n