At first, it sounded like Joe Biden’s 2023 State of the Union address was going to be another snoozer. Out of the gate came clanging all the usual paeans to bipartisanship: ‘To my Republican friends,’ Biden said, ‘if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress!’
Given that just five months ago Biden was pronouncing Trump supporters ‘a threat to this country’, that seemed a bit rich. Sure enough the fake bonhomie didn’t last. What unfolded over the next hour and a quarter was the weirdest, most disorienting State of the Union address I’ve ever seen.
The president kept lowering his voice only to abruptly scream ‘AMERICA! AMERICA!’ Kamala Harris was slowly eaten alive by her chair. And Republican legislators verbally sparred with Biden amid a tense atmosphere that felt more like the Commons than the US Capitol.
If the president is allowed to be political, shouldn’t his opponents?
When Biden accused ‘some Republicans’ of wanting ‘Medicare and Social Security to sunset every five years’, Republicans loudly booed and Marjorie Taylor Greene shouted ‘liar!’.
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