Like a budget, a State of the Union speech is a moral document: it reflects a president’s values and priorities, distilling his own view of his administration for the American people. On Thursday night, Joe Biden made his moral case for re-election: he views America as a besieged but worthy global leader, one whose tradition of democracy deserves to be defended and rebuilt. Referring to his opponent Donald Trump only as “my predecessor”, Biden repeatedly contrasted his own vision of a more equitable and prosperous nation with the Republican agenda. The point was to offer Americans an optimistic and inclusive vision – and to remind them of the cynicism, sadism and depravity of the Trump worldview, which threatens to undermine women’s freedoms, make interracial democracy impossible, and use the machinery of government for little else but to further Republicans own self regard and greed.
The 90-minute speech was raucous, strident and insistently optimistic; it appeared designed to demonstrate Biden’s vitality, and to launch in earnest a presidential campaign that has previously been somewhat tepid and sluggish. “I’m here to wake up the Congress,” Biden said as he began, declaring the nation to be in “an unprecedented moment”. Maybe he was there to wake up his own campaign, too.
