By Armin Sijamić
Last week, US President Joseph Biden delivered his State of the Union address. In his address to a joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate, which lasted 68 minutes, Biden showed energy, determination, responded to interjections from those present, made jokes, criticized, praised, and did not make his characteristic gaffes. In addition to assessing the state of the nation as good, he focused on confronting his likely rival in the presidential elections - Donald Trump.
Trump's electoral victory for the Republican nomination for president has led Biden's team to prepare for a new showdown between the two seasoned politicians. The team has already started to "smooth over" the issue of the president's age, who is currently 81, with video materials, and he himself says "I know I'm old," but then points to his opponent, who is incidentally 77 years old, claiming that Trump is a danger to the country as Americans know it, or as they would like to see it.
This brilliant move by his election staff aims to send a message that Biden is the one who can protect the world as Americans remember it, and that Trump can destroy it. The beginning of the aforementioned speech was for that purpose. Energetically and loudly, Biden reminded that Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a similar address in 1941, told America that the nation was in an "unprecedented" state while Adolf Hitler was destroying Europe and that the United States had to wake up.
Then he said that "freedom and democracy are under attack" in the world and at home, and that those attacking are Russian President Vladimir Putin and his predecessor in the White House, Donald Trump.
Putin attacked Ukraine and, according to Biden, will not stop there if Kyiv, which is asking for weapons, does not stop him. He recalled Republican Ronald Reagan, who tore down the Berlin Wall, and then quoted Republican Trump, who told Putin to do whatever he pleased in Europe. He then recalled the attack by Trump's supporters on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, which he described as an attack on democracy.
History Is Watching Us
In his address, Biden mentioned "his predecessor" several times and did not say Trump's name, just as he repeated several times that "history is watching" what American lawmakers and the American nation will do in times of turmoil. He asked Republicans to support his aid packages to Ukraine in the legislative bodies, which a group of them, influenced by Trump, are resisting.
After that, Biden began to talk about the successes of his administration, which no one can deny. NATO has admitted two militarily and economically strong countries (Finland and Sweden) as members, Washington has strengthened its position in Europe, dealt heavy blows to Russia and China, and the country's economy shows positive trends. Employment growth, better conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises, infrastructure renewal across the country, the opening of domestic chip manufacturing companies, and the American arms industry, which cannot keep up with all the needs of its allies, are just some of the successes.
However, this is not enough for a second presidential term, and according to some polls, Trump enjoys greater popularity, despite scandals and indictments that could lead him to life imprisonment. Therefore, Biden has subordinated this speech, as well as the state budget later, to increasing his popularity, precisely showing who he is addressing in the campaign and from whom he is seeking support. Some polls conducted after the speech show that Biden is now more popular than Trump.
The America That Is No More
Thus, the Democrat turned to those on whom the party has relied for decades, people who belonged to the middle class or aspired to it. In his speech, Biden stated, and in his budget showed, that he would address women, young people, workers, immigrants, the poor, the sick without healthcare, meaning he would fight for greater social equality, which sounds like heresy in American terms. The announcement of higher taxation on the profits of large corporations is part of the effort to restore the semblance of a fairer social distribution, which would help address the American deficit and debt.
Biden said that, unlike Trump, he would fight for women's right to abortion (which has been largely abolished), for those who want to buy their first home, for migrants, workers, families with young children, and the values of freedom and democracy.
The fact that his election team created a profile on the Chinese social network TikTok also speaks to how much Biden is counting on young people, and shortly after, the president announced that he was ready to ban its operation in the United States. TikTok is the most popular social network among young Americans. Earlier, Biden focused on canceling student loan debt for people who fell into debt slavery, as they paid off their debt for decades after finishing school.
Essentially, most of what Biden promises is the America that began to disappear when the USSR collapsed and when there was no longer a rival to the victorious capitalist logic of managing the world. This is the time Biden remembers, as he was active in American politics, while Trump was a businessman. The message to voters that he knows he is old is, in a way, an invitation to those who remember a different America and a dominant American middle class, suggesting that he is the one who can restore its former glory. "At my age, some things become clearer than ever," Biden said during the State of the Union address.
In his campaign, Biden will also count on the establishment, partly Republican, on the support of the media, non-governmental organizations, American allies around the world, as well as public figures who clashed with Donald Trump in the past elections and see him as the greatest danger to the country, or who will, for the current president's campaign, conduct "politics without politics," explaining in simple terms to their supporters why one candidate is better than the other.
There is still a lot of time until the November elections, and until then, Trump must first win in the courts and then gain the support of Americans. Nevertheless, the campaign has begun, and the coming months in American politics will be marked by the upcoming elections. Biden's proposed budget for fiscal year 2025, which begins in October, has already been rejected by the House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, which is proof that the battle between the two parties and two candidates has already begun.
Komentari (0)
Prijavite se za komentiranje
PrijavaJos nema komentara. Budite prvi!
Minuta
Sve →Iz drugih kategorija
High Representative Not Elected: Germans, French and British Against Americans, New Attempt at End of June
ČOVIĆ WITHOUT MERCY: How Those Who Brought Ademović to Office Created a Political Hell for Him
Sunny Saturday, quite warm
Tragedy in Albanian resort: Two minors drown
