Today is the day for columnists everywhere to tell us what Joe Biden should really say in tonight's State of the Union address.
Don't bother with them. Without exception, they're all stupid ideas. What Biden is going to do is present a laundry list of stuff he's done and stuff he wants to do, interrupted by a few shoutouts to regular folks sitting next to Jill in the audience. It will last about an hour.
That's what every president does. And while political junkies find it tedious, ordinary people like it. They always have. So you might just as well accept right now that this is what you're going to get.
Do ordinary people like it? Does anyone even watch it except political junkies? I am a political junkie and haven't watched in probably a decade or more.
About 30 million people watch. It's not nothin'.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/252425/state-of-the-union-address-viewer-numbers/
As jv said, yes. Not only does 10% of the country (i.e., close to 20% of voters) watch, most of them *like* all the "boring" parts. This became something of a bad running joke in the 1990s because Clinton liked the boring parts too, and would go on at great length about them, and how the government actually works.
This would be followed immediately by pundits in every available medium (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines) panning the speech and how boring it was and that the citizenry just isn't interested in all that stuff.
Several days later, after some polling had been done, they'd all have to eat their words because polls showed that viewers didn't think the speech was too long or boring, and they actually liked it.
I wondered that, too. Some of the older generation seem to see it as civic duty, and political junkies hate watch, but I didn't know if anyone else paid much attention.
My ONLY reason for watching it is the theater. Which Republican Assholes will rear up on their appendages and demonstrate their assholicness for the world to see? How will the expressions on the faces of Kamala "Lolno Bitches I Ain't Goin' Nowhere" Harris and Mike "A Little Higher Billy Yeah Right There Oooh" Johnson change? And most importantly, how will Joe "He Who Knows Far More About Politics Than You" Biden handle them?
That's the only reason to watch. It's ALL theater. There is no substance.
The few media previews I have heard all say the same thing: It doesn't matter what Biden does. The one thing he cannot afford to do is make a single mistake. He must be perfect! Or else civilization falls.
That's it, more or less. Wait for the gotcha moment, then the media will have something to talk about all week long.
It's a standard, by the way, they hold exactly one party/politician to.
The other pre-analysis that I saw was in the L.A. Times, Jackie Calmes op-ed "It's State of the Union time. Will Biden blow it?"
What a ridiculous punditocracy we have.
Here's what I'm looking for. Every time that Lauren Boebert interrupts Biden, he responds with one word. "Beetlejuice!"
nytimes coverage prediction:
'Nation Holds Its Breath Anticipating Trump's Tweets on SOTU'
Expectations For SOTU Unrealistically High
Possible Dem Strategies For Coping With Failure
A Times Panel Discussion
The released bits so far have been pugnacious. I like it.
I'll be watching just to see how long it takes the baboon colony to start hooting and throwing their own crap at him.
I'm estimating five minutes.
Guess I was wrong.
A big part of what is wrong with political reporting is reporting culture. It is sick, broken, and needs decapitation.
True, a lot of the pressures for hose-race coverage and both-sides-nonsense comes from business pressures and executive failsons. But the lazy arrogance, vindictive self-dealing and insistence on spinning bullshit narratives is all them. I've seen journalists whom I thought were Doing It Right be promoted into that culture and over time go bad - it is definitely the culture.
Much like a number of police forces, the only thing to do is burn them down and start over fresh. Preferably after Dash and the other shitbag failson media scions get real jobs.
As an aside, Balloon Juice used you as a source...
fun fun fun
This is not the time for him to go after Trump, as some pundits want. That will be done with attack ads, which Democrats have been saving up for.
Although Joe might have a few cracks about Trump.
Biden's always been really good at the working-with-my-friends-across-the-aisle stuff. Lefty partisans hate it because everything Republicans do is 100% bad faith bullshit these days, but your mainstream viewer (and, esp, the MSM) luuuuv that shit. He'll probably have warm words for Mitch McConnell, who deserves to live out the rest of his slurry, jowly days with a permanent case of infected pyles for all he's done to the Senate. But whatever. I'm not the intended audience. I think his digs at Trump, if there are any, are going to be very serious warnings about the threat he poses to American democracy, not cheap shots.
Welp. Color me surprised. I didn't watch the whole thing, but reading comments and live-blogging elsewhere, it looks like he's pretty much given up on the friendly gestures towards bipartisanship and just gone after Republicans and Trump with a hammer and tongs for a change.
I'm sure the punditocracy will be *so* disappointed at this "missed opportunity" to build bridges, yada yada yada. I'm sure they'll scrutinize Trump's feed with similar concern for signs that he's ready to work with the Democrats as well....
His best shot at Trump was one where he didn't event refer to him as "my predecessor." It was when he said he was old enough to repect traditional American values--but "other people my age" disagree.
I agree that it's mostly aimed at normies who aren't paying attention to political stuff 99% of the time and want to hear what the President has to offer once a year. As others have said, the media have made it mostly a watching party for any signs of a senior moment. (My prediction: he'll do fine and the Fox News pundits will be left speculating about whether he's been given powerful new CIA-designed drugs to make him appear vigorous and sharp.) But we'll also see if Mike Johnson dramatically rips up his text of the speech at the end! Fun times!
>> But we'll also see if Mike Johnson dramatically rips up his text of the speech at the end!<<
I was kind of hoping he would set it on fire for more drama and have the flames go up his arm and set his face on fire. You may say I’m a dreamer…
I'm hoping SNL does a sendup of all the headshaking and eyerolling by Johnson behind Biden's back. It was like watching a fifth grader mock his teacher.
I'm hoping SNL does a sendup of Katie Britt's overwrought and overacted response. I'm betting on Sarah Sherman or Heidi Gardner -- or Chloe Fineman - to nail it.
Watched on CNN. I have to say Jake Tapper is awful.
Several people are whining that the speech was "too political." If we want to talk about political, let's talk about why this SOTU is being given the day AFTER Super Tuesday. Speaker Mike Johnson deliberately held back his invitaiton to the latest date in decades.
The GOP wanted to make sure Trump had the nomination locked up before giving Biden an opportunity to do his Constitutionally mandated job.
Wish granted.