Biden uses his state of the union speech to attack Trump, just like Trump would have done.
In the yearly state of the union speech an American president is supposed to give an account of how the union is doing without being partisan. Joe Biden instead delivered a campaign speech this year attacking both Trump and the supreme court. As discussed in a previous post, democratic restoration is a difficult balancing act, and Biden’s belligerent tone is not helping in restoring any norms broken by his predecessor. It is yet another example of how restoring norms and institutions is a fraught process, and that breaking democratic norms begets more breaking of democratic norms.
The most troubling aspect of Biden’s behaviour at the state of the union was in my view that he used it as a campaign event. Trump is notorious for making practically no distinction between the state and himself. He shamelessly used his office for personal gain, and using the state of the union to further one’s own political ambitions is in the Trumpian tradition. Ironically, that really undermines Biden’s campaign for re-election. His pitch in 2020 was that he would restore the damage to America’s institutions Trump caused, that he would be the return to normalcy. But his policies have largely been a continuation of Trump’s. Biden hasn’t reversed Trump’s corporate tax cuts, his tariffs on China, and has continued building the border wall. If by normal Biden meant pre-Trump then his policies haven’t restored anything, so presumably the restoration is in how the president conducts himself and in restoring democratic norms. In which case Biden’s restoration is patchy at best.
As discussed, the issue with any democratic restoration is that the deterioration of previously established norms creates a new political logic which makes re-establishing those norms difficult. But that is hardly a reassurance when Biden’s platform was explicitly about re-establishing norms. It seems to me like Biden is so assured of his own moral superiority over Trump that he is unable to see the ways in which he emulates his hated rival. The two goad each other into being ever more hostile, driving ever more partisanship. They are focused on the other side’s slights and perceived hostility such that they can’t see their own role in perpetuating the cycle of partisanship and democratic decay.
Trump has done far more damage to America’s democracy than Biden has, and as frustrating as Biden’s state of the union speech was, I don’t think it compares at all to how Trump acted as president. But it is a case study in how moral outrage and partisanship blinds the Democrats to how their politicians use underhanded and Trumpian tactics. Its disappointing to see the ostensible adult in the room whose main promise was to being back civility to politics stoops to the lows someone like Trump who has only disdain for democratic norms.
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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Cover photo by Sobia Akhtar from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson