Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. The 2024 race has begun. The nomination phase has effectively ended. With Super Tuesday, the withdrawal of Nikki Haley, and the State of the Union, the general election campaign has begun. Despite some garbled words and an occasional reappearance of his lifelong stutter, Biden's performance reassured nervous Democrats that he can display vigor.
In a raucous State of the Union address, President Joe Biden’s goal was to reassure Americans that at 81, he is ready for a second term.
- A Contrast With Trump: President Biden launched a series of fiery attacks against former President Donald Trump, a competitor whom he did not mention by name but made clear was a dire threat to American democracy and stability in the world.
- A Rowdy Address: The president was feisty and confrontational. Republicans jeered from their seats. And Democrats enthusiastically cheered their presidential nominee even as a few aired their grievances about the war in Gaza.
- Biden’s Battles: Republican opposition, splits in his own party and tension with allies make Mr. Biden’s vow to restore American power more complicated than it was when he came into office.
- Trump’s Response: Outages on Trump’s platform, Truth Social, interrupted the barrage of derogatory posts that served as his retort to Biden’s remarks.
The GOP response by Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama was a fiasco. Martin Pengelly at The Guardian:
Katie Britt’s Republican response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address drew reactions ranging from the baffled to the satirical to the appalled, even among fellow rightwingers.
“What the hell am I watching right now?” an unnamed Trump adviser told Rolling Stone.
“It’s one of our biggest disasters ever,” another unnamed Republican strategist told the Daily Beast.
...
In his address Biden used his bully pulpit effectively, attacking Republicans in a fiery speech and inviting a strong response. But Britt’s speech, delivered with overt theatricality, oscillating in tone between the wholesome and the wholly horrific, did not land well even in her own party.
Charlie Kirk, founder of the far-right Turning Point USA youth group, said: “I’m sure Katie Britt is a sweet mom and person, but this speech is not what we need. Joe Biden just declared war on the American right and Katie Britt is talking like she’s hosting a cooking show, whispering about how Democrats ‘dont get it’.”
That pointed to widespread confusion over the setting for such a figure to give such an important speech: a kitchen.
As a Gallup poll showed 57% of American voters think the US would be better off if more women were in elected office, Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Trump aide turned never-Trumper, said: “Senator Katie Britt is a very impressive person … I do not understand the decision to put her in a KITCHEN for one of the most important speeches she’s ever given.”
so it appears that @SenKatieBritt is not just a bad actress but also a huge liar
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) March 9, 2024
this is what the Republican Party has become https://t.co/R8Lvx9mnOY
