On the State of the Union Speech: What Biden Left Out

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

This can be a publish about nothing; or somewhat the nothing that’s the place one would anticipate a one thing to seem. A lot of the protection of the Biden speech — leaving apart, mercifully, the partisan rancor over whether or not Biden is shouting (strategically, no much less) or merely being (in the end) “fiery” slash “feisty” — focuses on coverage implications (for good, or ailing). All this protection is so instrumental as to be ineffective. The worst of it’s that it may not be hypocritical; perhaps they actually consider what they’re saying. Anyhow, chances are you’ll assume our democracy works one thing like this well-known Industrial Employees of the World (IWW) poster, which I’ve helpfully annotated:

img src=”https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/iww.png” alt=”” width=”763″ peak=”990″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-268139″ />

In the event you do[1], then the result of no matter proposals Biden would possibly make can be decided by the correlation of forces within the governing and ruling lessons, and may have little to do with the wishes or opinions of voters. So why hassle with coverage, handled as something aside from a speaking level engineered to attraction to 3 of the six primary feelings? (happiness, unhappiness, disgust, concern, shock, and anger)[2]. In any case, why ought to I waste my stunning thoughts on Biden’s coverage coverage proposals after how he stiffed us all on Covid:

Anyhow, the dude owes me 600 bucks.

So, inspecting what Biden says is ineffective (apart from the pointillist strategy of searching for tells to the correlation of forces within the language, which I should not have the power to do, the [family blogging] time change having thrown me for a loop. I can by no means keep in mind whether or not it’s “Fall ahead and spring again, or fall again, and spring ahead.” For a similar cause, this publish won’t be as link-rich as I wish to be). Nonetheless, I feel will probably be helpful to look at what Biden does not say. Relatively than placing on my yellow waders and splashing about within the shadows, I’m going to, because it have been, decide up my birding binoculars and scan the empty horizon for what I might anticipate to be there, however just isn’t.

I’ll look a 3 lacunae in Biden’s speech: Antitrust Enforcement, Shared Air, and Democrat Complicity. I’ll use AP’s transcript of Biden’s textual content, as delivered. There are different annotated variations right here, right here, and right here.

Antitrust Enforcement

Many readers view the FTC’s revivified software of antitrust legislation as one of many few actually vivid spots of the Biden administration. From the Guardian, “‘She’s going to prevail’: FTC head Lina Khan is preventing for an anti-monopoly America“:

Throughout 96 pages of the Yale Legislation Journal in 2017, Lina Khan set out why she believed the US’s policing of huge enterprise was failing. The paper – which focused Amazon – shook the Silicon Valley institution and catapulted Khan into the guts of a battle over America’s enterprise orthodoxy and, in the end, into a task during which she might overhaul it.

Khan’s appointment to guide the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) simply 4 years later angered massive tech, however it has change into more and more clear that Khan, and the Biden administration have a good larger agenda: resetting the federal authorities’s decades-old stance on competitors in a fashion unseen in a long time.

Charged with imposing antitrust legislation and selling shopper safety, the FTC is nominally the regulator charged with stopping offers that may hurt shoppers. However below successive administrations – Republican and Democratic – some critics cost the FTC stood by as business after business consolidated energy within the arms of fewer and fewer corporations.

All that modified below Joe Biden, who has persistently attacked the monopolization of US enterprise.

For instance:

Final week the FTC sued to dam Kroger’s $24.6bn takeover of rival grocer Albertsons. If accredited, the company warned, the U’s largest-ever grocery store merger would elevate costs for hundreds of thousands of customers.

Stoller remarks:

Khan is “most likely the most effective chief the FTC’s ever had”, argued Matt Stoller, director of analysis on the American Financial Liberties Mission, and a former colleague. “That doesn’t imply she’s going to succeed, or fail. However she’s actually stretching all of their sources and making an attempt to make use of the authority they’ve been granted to meet the mission they’ve been charged with.”

And the politics of all of it:

With Washington affected by partisan warring, Khan has additionally change into the topic of intense Republican criticism.

(To be honest, not by Matt Gaetz or J.D. Vance, curiously.) So right here, within the State of the Union speech, is newly self-discovered populist Joe Biden’s full-throated protection of Lina Khan (sound and artwork by way of):

Biden does say this:

Look, I’m additionally eliminating junk charges — these hidden charges — on the finish of your invoice which are there with out your information. My administration introduced we’re chopping bank card late charges from $32 to $8.

So who’s doing that? That’s proper, the FTC. From a WhiteHouse.gov FAQ on March 5:

The FTC has proposed a rule that, if finalized as proposed, would ban corporations from charging hidden and shock junk charges and require that costs are listed upfront when shoppers make purchases.

However within the SOTU, Biden says nothing concerning the FTC, not even once they’re doing this Dick Morris-level tiny repair. Biden additionally says nothing about the 11 antitrust fits the FTC has introduced below Lina Khan, together with the one in opposition to Amazon. If I have been Khan, I’d be listening for footsteps behind me.

Shared Air

Here’s what Biden has to say on shared air, the medium by which an asymptomatic, airborne Stage Three Biohazard unfold, infects us, and has taken over 1,000,000 lives (extra below Biden than below his “predecessor”):

Right here is Biden on Covid:

The pandemic now not controls our lives. The vaccine that saved us from COVID is — are actually getting used to beat most cancers.

Readers, you most likely know [pounds head on desk] what I’m about to say right here, and may say it higher than I’m about to. Biden has nothing to say about airborne transmission (and by no means has stated something; “Physician Biden,” for instance, has by no means gone on Good Morning America to construct a Corsi-Rosenthal field with some cute children). As a result of the hegemonic factions of our governing class haven’t any permission construction to speak about shared air, they can not speak about cleansing shared air (or spending the cash and creating the laws to take action). The one thing BIden does say is sort of as unhealthy, and definitely as silly. Covid “controls your life” when you’re contaminated with it, whether or not you’re contaminated or not. It most actually “controls your life” if someone who breathe the virus into your shared air provides you Lengthy Covid. And when you’ve adopted the “private danger evaluation” technique promoted by the Biden administration in its effort to destroy public well being, that’s controlling your life, too. Oh, Newsweek charges Biden’s declare on Covid vaccines and most cancers TRUE. They are saying:

Plainly solely a foul religion or slender interpretation of Biden’s feedback might have pushed the concept that he was actually referring to the therapies developed by Pfizer, Moderna and others, and never new applied sciences.

mRNA expertise used to develop the COVID vaccines is being utilized in new trials to deal with a doubtlessly wide selection of cancers. The White Home introduced $24 million in funding final August which might, partly, discover using mRNA vaccination expertise within the therapy of most cancers.

Newsweek’s stuffed with it, and refuses to just accept the plain that means of Biden’s phrases (which have been presumably vetted by a phalanx of White Home staffers, former Covid Czar Zeints, and so on. All of them accredited the lie. In the event you assume “the vaccine that saved us from COVID” and “expertise used to develop the COVID vaccines” are the identical factor, then I’ve some bridge expertise that I wish to promote you. It must be very straightforward.

Democrat Complicity

On abortion, Biden says this:

Like most People, I consider Roe v. Wade obtained it proper.

I thank Vice President Harris for being an unbelievable chief defending reproductive freedom and a lot extra. Thanks.

My predecessor got here to workplace decided to see Roe v. Wade overturned. He’s the rationale it was overturned, and he brags about it. Have a look at the chaos that has resulted.

In the event you — when you, the American folks, ship me a Congress that helps the proper to decide on, I promise you I’ll restore Roe v. Wade because the legislation of the land once more.

Roe was determined in 1973. Here’s a website that lists “Home and Senate Concurrence with Presidents” (that’s, when all are from the identical social gathering). 1977-1980 (the Carter Administration); 1993-1994 (the Clinton Adminstration); and 2009-2010 (the Obama Adminstration). It’s exhausting to keep away from the conclusion that if Roe was by no means “the legislation of the land,” it’s as a result of Democrats didn’t move the legislation (and in the event that they thought different issues have been extra necessary, then what’s Biden whinging for?). To be honest, although, it’s straightforward to keep away from that conclusion when you’re a Democrat. Oh, and each single decide that overturned Roe was moved up the ladder till they obtained to the Supreme Courtroom with Democrat complicity, since they by no means made Roe a litmus take a look at (because of the Norms Fairy, or one thing). And here’s what Biden has to say about that:

If a Democrat administration was complicit in any catastrophe that befell the American folks, particularly the working class, you’ll hear, in a sample so apparent as to verge on pathology, nothing about that from Biden, though, as with Roe, you’ll hear a few Democrat effort to assert credit score for “preventing” to unravel the issue they themselves created. (Biden’s remarks on deindustrialization are so scattered and vacuous I can’t pull out a quote, however you’ll be able to guess he’ll say nothing about Invoice Clinton and NAFTA.)

nothing

Conclusion

As the Monetary Instances factors out, Biden’s SOTU was actually the opening speech of the Presidential marketing campaign of 2024:

So we’re speaking the morning after the State of the Union on Friday. And, Ed, earlier than we dive into this, the content material of the speech, have you ever ever seen a State of the Union handle just like the one which we noticed final night time?

[EDWARD LUCE:] No. I imply, it’s an excellent query. Plenty of them are forgettable as a result of they’re laundry lists of presidents’ legislative agenda. Biden’s particularly have been fairly forgettable. Final night time was unforgettable. Not simply due to the second, which is the worst potential polling numbers that Biden’s had since he grew to become president, but additionally as a result of it was a marketing campaign State of the Union. This wasn’t a laundry record.

It was completely a laundry record; see the transcripts. Extra:

This was the kick-off, actually, of his 2024 marketing campaign, and he spoke with the kind of power of a politician on the marketing campaign path. So it was very, very completely different beast to your, to your run-of-the-mill State of the Union, most of which do get immediately forgotten. This one received’t be forgotten.

We’ll see whether or not will probably be forgotten or not. Nonetheless, you’ll be able to make certain that with Biden on the marketing campaign path, you’ll hear nothing concerning the FTC and antitrust, nothing about cleansing shared air, and nothing about Democrat duty for any of the issues we face, that are quite a few.

NOTES

[1] Really, whereas I feel this graphic is impactful and correct at a excessive degree, even at this time, it’s nonetheless static and never dynamic. Not being a graphic artist, I don’t know the best way to categorical the dynamism of sophistication relations. Maybe a reader can level me to one thing higher.

[2] Six is the results of a lazy seek for Paul Eckaman’s work; there are different typologies for the emotional spectrum, somewhat like there are shade wheels with six, or sixteen slices, or different numbers.

APPENDIX Biden’s Demeanor

Listed below are some nonetheless photographs of Biden’s microexpressions from the primary seven minutes of his speech (that’s, earlier than he actually went on the assault in opposition to his “predecessor”):

Have a look at the set of Biden’s mouth. I feel it’s secure to say that Biden’s two canines, Main and Commander, are vicious as a result of their grasp is vicious.

APPENDIX Biden’s Analysis

The Babylon Bee has the most effective joke: DC-Space Pharmacies All Out Of Stimulants. However as I wrote:

As readers know, I’m not a fan of distant prognosis (and I’m nonetheless ready for a White Home “reporter” to ask Biden to depend backwards by sevens throughout a presser). That stated, the canines aren’t barking within the night time on this. The primary non-barking canine is the White Home: Given the givens, it appears cheap to conclude that no cognitive checks have been run as a result of the White Home, at a minimal, was not sure what the outcomes can be. Subsequently, the conclusion that “Biden has cognitive points, identified to his inside circle,” appears inescapable (and says nothing about their nature or diploma, or the results of hyypothesized “juice”). By the identical token, I might anticipate the environment friendly Republican oppo machine to have produced severe, medically-driven movies documenting Biden’s gait, flubs, and so on., by now. That hasn’t occurred both. Maybe they need to prop Biden up simply as a lot as Democrats do?

That’s what we all know, and we don’t and may’t know extra. I actually do assume the snark about Biden’s cognitive points ought to decelerate, and at this level it’s mere lazy cynicism. We don’t know what we would wish to know to make a prognosis, so let’s not use phrases (“dementia”) that suggest that we do. Biden gave an excellent efficiency on the SOTU, and below monumental stress. All we are able to do is watch how he continues to do on the marketing campaign path, which is the one knowledge that basically issues.