With a forceful State of the Union address Thursday, President Joe Biden set the tone for his reelection campaign, seeking to ease Democrats' concerns about his age and unconditional support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
Biden also used the speech to sharpen his attacks on Donald Trump and draw a contrast with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s positions on key issues.
Observers have lauded the speech as a potential reset point for the Biden campaign that has been weighed down by the president’s low favorability rating.
“It was a well-crafted speech,” said Jennifer R. Mercieca, presidential rhetoric scholar and professor of communication at Texas A&M University. “The Democratic Party had [a] great night,” she told VOA.
The address laid out a blueprint of the Biden campaign’s strategy for approaching the president’s winning issues as well as its problem areas.
Defending freedom and democracy
Biden hit hard on issues he’s most confident about: Ukraine, election integrity, abortion, taxes and federal programs. He addressed them in the broader context of defending freedom and democracy, which he cast as being under threat from Trump at home and Moscow’s aggression abroad.
He reminded Americans that it was Trump who put in the conservative majority on the Supreme Court that overturned legal protection for women’s right to an abortion. “My God, what freedom else would you take away?” he asked. He portrayed the push for gun control as “freedom to be safe” and the expansion of ballot access for minorities as “freedom to vote.”
These issues enjoy broad support from Biden’s base and beyond. Seeking to reclaim the mantle of economic populism from Trump, Biden laid out a progressive vision of his social welfare agenda by proposing to reshape the corporate tax system to make the wealthiest Americans pay more.
By promising to protect American freedom and democracy, Biden is tapping into public dissatisfaction with the way democracy is working in the country; approval is at a historic low of 28%.
However, while linking protection of freedom and democracy at home and abroad was a “clever rhetorical device” for a speech, it’s unclear how effective it will be to motivate voters in November, Chris Tuttle, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told VOA.
Pro-Palestinian groups in Biden’s base point out that his handling of Gaza is an example of hypocrisy in his argument for freedom.
In his speech, Biden quoted Ronald Reagan, who asked Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" that encircled what was then West Berlin, said Hassan Abdel Salam, representative of the “Abandon Biden” campaign led by disenchanted former supporters of the president.
“He stayed silent when all we wanted from him was to call on the Israeli government to finally ‘tear down this wall’ that enables death, destruction and famine upon an innocent people,” Salam told VOA.
A more balanced approach on Gaza
As casualties mount, Biden has been increasingly candid toward Israel, delivering a rare rebuke that “humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.”
In addition to ordering the U.S. military to airdrop aid, he has directed it to establish a temporary pier off Gaza’s shore to facilitate aid shipments from Cyprus, an extraordinary and expensive operation.
The president is signaling growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the humanitarian crisis and unwillingness to work toward a two-state solution, William F. Wechsler, senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs, told VOA.
Biden’s campaign is betting that with a more balanced approach, Democrats outraged by the president’s policies on Gaza will decide on Election Day that the alternative would be worse. But that bet depends on prospects for a lasting cease-fire and whether Washington continues its unconditional support for Israel.
“It is absurd to criticize Netanyahu’s war in one breath and provide him [with] another $10 billion to continue that war in the next,” said progressive Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders.
Staying strong, stable on China
While China has long braced itself for attacks from both U.S. parties in an election year, Biden’s speech indicates that the issue may not get as much attention during the campaign as Beijing had thought, said Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States.
“Biden’s record on countering China is strong enough that Republicans might not want to have the debate,” Daly told VOA.
Stressing that he wants competition, not conflict, with China, Biden said the U.S. is in a position to win because of his moves to revitalize partnerships and alliances in the Pacific, uphold stability across the Taiwan Strait and ensure advanced American technologies aren’t used in Chinese weapons.
"Frankly, for all his tough talk on China, it never occurred to my predecessor to do that,” Biden quipped.
Blame Trump, Republicans for border problem
The unprecedented number of undocumented migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has made immigration a top issue for voters and a weak point for Biden.
Earlier this year, Senate Republicans rejected a bipartisan bill that would have given Biden the power to stop taking asylum applications when migrant crossings reached a certain number and provided more funding for agencies and courts to expedite the backlogged asylum process.
Biden laid the blame on Trump and Republicans, accusing them of blocking the bill so they can continue campaigning on the chaos on the border.
Tackling Trump head-on
Whether voters will ultimately side with the president on key issues remains to be seen, but many of Biden’s core supporters were heartened to see the president tackling Trump head-on.
“The president brought the fire and swagger that Black voters have been waiting on,” said Adrianne Shropshire, a Democratic strategist and executive director of BlackPAC. “We know we’re in a fight, and they want to see the president and vice president throwing punches,” she told VOA.
Making progress on themes that matter most to young voters — climate change, reproductive access, gun violence prevention and student debt — is key, said DeNora Getachew, CEO of DoSomething.org, a hub for youth-centered activism.
However, the overwhelming sentiment of young people in this election year is “disappointment, if not disbelief,” over a Biden-Trump rematch, Getachew told VOA.
The president will need to instill a sense of hope that a win in 2024 means he will take decisive action to cut through the congressional “polarization and inaction” that is eating away at trust in political institutions and American democracy, she said.
