The State of the Union

The often-raucous reception to the president's annual address may have masked one key moment of silence

"File:MJK48214 United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.).jpg" by Martin Kraft is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Commentary

As speeches go, President Biden’s latest report to Congress on the State of the Union was hardly an exercise in soaring rhetoric. There were few, if any, lofty phrases, no memorable passages, nothing like the announcement of a broad doctrine to carry the president’s name into history.

Instead, the language was plain, clearly directed at ordinary Americans rather than the policy and pundit class. In many ways it was inarguably a political speech. But it also carried some hidden weight in the simple words, something beyond its New Deal vision of activist government. When the president spoke of an inflection point, it was immediately after saying:

Democracy must not be a partisan issue. It must be an American issue.

Every generation of Americans has faced a moment where they have been called on to protect our democracy, to defend it, to stand up for it.

And this is our moment.

In another time, such a passage would have been little more than an anodyne nod to our widely accepted norms. And it would have met with polite applause from both sides of the aisle before quickly being forgotten. But last night, it was notable how little approval it got from the Republican side; Speaker McCarthy, seated behind the president, didn’t applaud at all, and there was barely a smattering throughout the House GOP Conference. Just barely.

It’s always a tricky business to attribute too much meaning to such observations. But it’s also important to remember, the text of the State of the Union is always released well in advance of the speech itself, and the respective sides of Congress have plenty of time to coordinate their responses. There’s nothing spontaneous in their reactions unless the president has gone off-script, something President Biden did quite a bit last night — but not here. His spoken words were exactly as printed.

Which begs the question, why let such an obvious opportunity to show fidelity to the Constitution sail past without even bothering to keep up appearances? What was the signal, and who was the signal for?