Saving Democracy — There
Terry H. Schwadron
March 3, 2022
Joe Biden has never been a soaring orator, but his emotional call in his State of the Union to defend Ukraine vigorously in the name of democracy was close — and it drew appropriate bipartisan applause from Congress as well as favorable global reviews everywhere but Moscow.
As Russian troops were moving into Ukraine’s major cities, Biden seemed to be recognized for a central role in wrangling international condemnation for Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin’s campaign to overturn democracy. The call that Russia “pay a price” for invading Ukraine clearly was well received even by Congressional Republicans, even if they continued to suggest that Biden’s “weakness” had somehow invited international aggression.
Still, international Joe Biden did a lot better in his appeal than did the domestic Joe Biden who followed in his hour-long speech, which largely turned on repackaging the requests for money he has so far unsuccessfully sought in big, combined social spending and climate bills.
The key to marrying the international and domestic messages was missing. What I had hoped Biden and his speechwriters could carry off was the notion that just as we are willing to muscle the world for preservation of international democracy, we ought to be able to at least talk about the preservation of democracy within the United States.
But you could see in the pans of Republican faces — and a few rude catcalls from the likes of Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Loren Boebert (R-Colo.) — that any such attempt was going to fall flat, no matter what clever speechwriting tools Biden used, or almost any topic outside of Ukraine and Russia. The November elections loom, fat with culture clash divides, and insistence on labels rather than problem-solving. News coverage of the speech in Left- and Right-leaning sites reflected exactly those partisan concerns.
Unmet Calls for ‘Unity’
Indeed, Biden tried talking “Unity” again, and you could almost hear the groan in the room. There may be Unity about finding Putin an aggressor, but little else, and in recent days, we’ve heard more Republican agenda points fashioned to point up soft underbelly points of the Biden proposals.
So, progress on Biden’s watch to turn back the worst of Covid is repacked as an attack on mandates for vaccines and masks — even in a room where masks were finally voluntary. And massive job gains and turnarounds in the economy are buried among blame for the persistent consumer price inflation that has come with Covid uncertainty, among other factors. Or immigration policy changes for more humane treatment seen as undercutting border security and inviting the huge numbers of migrants at the Southern border.
At times, it was uncomfortable watching Biden trying to take credit for the very policies that Republicans want people to see as failures. Mention of the tax changes from the Donald Trump years that favored only the wealthy drew Republican boos, and reminders that Biden wasn’t living up to Unity calls by doing so.
Biden wants big government spending to address social inequities (that word was not mentioned) and to grow our way out of inflation; Republicans don’t want government to do very much at all outside of dealing with emergencies and financing a threatening military.
Our State of the Union never really coped with the state of race, other than generalized calls for the Congress to pass legislation that it refuses to pass to protect voting rights. By contrasts, Republicans rose to their feet when Biden called for the country to fund, rather than defund police, while rather skipping by the fact that Republicans stalled consideration of bills to make policing more responsive to communities and ignored calls to address guns.
Indeed, it was noteworthy to me that Biden would distinctly outline five areas of specific bipartisan interests — fighting opioids, expanding mental health, protecting kids using social media, aiding veterans’ health, and building cancer research — almost as a dare for any positive action from across the aisle.
There will be plenty of attempts to measure any political gain from the speech to repair Biden’s slumping poll standing, though even the pounding Republican messages should not hide the clear conclusion that the Biden team actually does engage on a remarkable number of simultaneous problems, even if it cannot always win needed bipartisan support in Congress.
The Message to Putin
Many news reports reflected that the speech sounded like two presented together, basically the calls for commitment and possible sacrifice to help Ukraine under siege and the more traditional domestic program list.
Biden’s call to continue backing an international coalition to block Putin was a stirring commitment: “We will save democracy,” he said to approving ears. Overseas opinion has given the president and his administration high marks for their handling of the Ukraine response, through diplomacy over many months that has kept the NATO countries united.
Still, outside of the renewed commitment to defend literal NATO-country borders, we learned little in this speech about how far this conflict will go, and how we intend to end what Putin has started. The call to save democracy is mired for now in the details of containing and isolating Russia and not on a sketch of what happens in a post-Ukraine world.
Perhaps in deference to bipartisanship and to reduce political infighting, Biden chose not to mention that Trump had acted differently towards Ukraine, firing our ambassador, and holding up defensive aid to Ukraine to gather political dirt on Biden’s family before then releasing the aid once the story came out.
Biden also chose to skip the weird MAGA cheers for Putin in the middle of war and made no mention of the Jan. 6 attack on U.S. Capitol as representing the antithesis of preserving democracy.
I’m sure Biden did a good job in reminding Americans, Putin and the global audience listening for U.S. resolve that our commitments are strong.
I only wish Biden could persuade the deeply split Senate and House that protecting democracy at home takes as much work. It would be easier to accept that “We’re going to be OK,” as Biden summed up.
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