President Biden throws down the gauntlet in impassioned 2024 State of the Union speech

Repub­li­cans have sought to hang the label “Sleepy Joe” on Pres­i­dent Biden, as a way of exploit­ing pub­lic con­cern over age and gait of Amer­i­ca’s 46th President.

The ques­tion can now be put: “Sleepy Who?” Biden addressed the nation tonight in a feisty, ener­getic cam­paign-style State of the Union speech. He decried the poli­cies of “my pre­de­ces­sor” — not once speak­ing the name of Don­ald Trump — and open­ly, enjoy­ably sparred with Repub­li­can lawmakers.

“The issue fac­ing our nation is not how old we are, it’s how old our ideas are?” said Biden, first elect­ed to the U.S. Sen­ate in 1972 at the age of twenty-nine.

The speech began with pas­sion­ate advo­ca­cy for U.S. mil­i­tary aid to Ukraine and turn­ing back Russia’s inva­sion. “I say this to Con­gress: We have to stand up to Putin… We will not walk away; we will not bow down. I will not bow down”.

He flagged Sweden’s Prime Min­is­ter Ulf Kris­ters­son, seat­ed beside Jill Biden in the House gallery: “Wel­come to NATO.” Swe­den just joined the alliance today, rein­vig­o­rat­ed fol­low­ing Putin’s esca­la­tion of Rus­si­a’s war on Ukraine.

But Biden went fur­ther, evok­ing Ronald Reagan’s famous words in a Berlin speech: “Mr. Gor­bachev, tear down this wall.”

In con­trast, Biden cit­ed a recent, reck­less speech by Trump, in which the Repub­li­cans leader told lis­ten­ers, If NATO mem­bers fall back on their mil­i­tary con­tri­bu­tions to the alliance, he would tell Putin, “Do what­ev­er the hell you want.”

The reac­tion to Biden’s speech on Twit­ter was of sar­casm dis­guis­ing shock by Repub­li­cans. “Why is Biden snarling and shout­ing?” asked FNC host Lau­ra Ingra­ham. Repub­li­can strate­gist and poll­ster Frank Luntz added: “Let’s see whether unde­cid­ed vot­ers like being yelled at.”

Recent­ly mint­ed House Speak­er Mike John­son, seat­ed behind Biden, was the most uncom­fort­able fig­ure of the night. He stayed put as Vice Pres­i­dent Kamala Har­ris jumped to her feet for repeat­ed stand­ing ova­tions by Democ­rats, and remained silent at Biden took on ultra MAGA Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene.

“As Pres­i­dent speaks to Con­gress, this House Speak­er smirks and scowls from behind” wrote his­to­ri­an Michael Beschloss. Ex-Oba­ma White House aide Stephanie Cut­ter chimed in: “Michael John­son should have prac­ticed his non-expres­sion face in front of a mir­ror. He doesn’t know what the hell to do right now.”

The Biden speech dealt with great glob­al and domes­tic issues — “Democ­ra­cy is under attack” — but also Amer­i­cans’ every­day annoy­ances over junk fees attached to air­plane tick­ets, cred­it card late fees and the mys­te­ri­ous shrink­ing size of a Snick­ers can­dy bar (shrink­fla­tion, which Robert Reich has been highlighting).

Biden assailed Repub­li­cans’ 2017 tax cut for show­er­ing mon­ey on the already-rich and said he will ask Con­gress to impose a tax on the country’s thou­sand or so bil­lion­aires. “Does any­body believe our tax code is fair?” he asked.

“No!” bel­lowed Democ­rats in the chamber.

A sur­pris­ing chunk of the speech was aimed at younger vot­ers, whose votes have fueled Demo­c­ra­t­ic vic­to­ries over Trump-backed can­di­dates. Biden called for an end to crim­i­nal penal­ties against recre­ation­al users of mar­i­jua­na. He called out a sur­vivor of the Uvalde, Texas, school mas­sacre, pledg­ing: “I see a future where we save the plan­et from the cli­mate cri­sis and our coun­try from gun violence.”

The Pres­i­dent called for a nation­wide ban on assault weapons with high-capac­i­ty mag­a­zines, used in mass killings from Uvalde to Buf­fa­lo to El Paso.

Biden had to nav­i­gate two fraught and high­ly emo­tion­al issues. The Pres­i­dent reit­er­at­ed his long­stand­ing sup­port of Israel — and revul­sion at Hamas’ slaugh­ter of 1,200 Israelis last Octo­ber — but stat­ed: “As we look to the future, the only real solu­tion is a two-state solu­tion over time”. With star­va­tion threat­en­ing thou­sands of Pales­tin­ian chil­dren in Gaza, he announced the U.S. will install a tem­po­rary pier on the Gaza coast to fun­nel in emer­gency supplies.

Biden mocked House Repub­li­cans for scut­tling a Sen­ate-nego­ti­at­ed bor­der plan — at Trump’s direc­tion— but reit­er­at­ed America’s his­to­ry as a nation built by immi­grants. He sin­gled out a par­tic­u­lar­ly ugly Trump remark, say­ing, “I will not demo­nize immi­grants say­ing they poi­son the blood of our country.”

The Democ­rats deserve to be ener­gized at Biden’s speech.

An instant CNN poll gave him high marks. “He gave a mas­ter class in how to defend America’s future and the future of our democ­ra­cy,” said long­time Demo­c­ra­t­ic strate­gist and pun­dit Don­na Brazile.

The Pres­i­dent was feel­ing good as well. Speak­er John­son turned down the lights, but Biden hap­pi­ly lin­gered for an hour glad hand­ing on the House floor. One law­mak­er he talked to was Seattle’s Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jayapal.