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I have seen at least 20 presidential speeches in Congress. None, so far, has finished with the words “thank you for your patience.”
The efficiency with which Joe Biden played he spoke it was not in the oratory or in the atmosphere, which was reduced by social distancing. It wasn’t in the background either, although Biden was promoting an ambitious agenda. It was his repeated use of the word “we” instead of the presidential “I”, and the fact that the people of the house instead of the masked legislator quotient were the target audience for Biden.
Most of these speeches rarely move the needle, and Biden’s will probably be no exception. But on his 99th night in office, Biden gave a clear indication of what kind of president he will be. The most amazing thing is that he seems to have heeded the tips to avoid the word. In more than an hour, his address was not short. But he had an economy above his average peroration during dinner when he was vice president or senator. They say a leopard cannot change its spots. Biden’s word-of-mouth illness was long considered one of his biggest handicaps in politics. It’s hard to remember a blunder he made since he was named a Democrat 14 months ago.
Biden frequently strayed from his text Wednesday night. But in most cases it was a matter of making a brief aside before returning to his prepared remarks. “What? Do you think deer wear Kevlar vests?” He asked after claiming that gun hunters don’t need semi-automatic military rifles. There is also no evidence of cognitive decline, although this remains a recurring trope among Biden critics. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican senator, recently said Biden’s lack of tweets betrayed the signs of an absent president. As Biden demonstrated in his preference for collective pronouns Wednesday night, all it means is that he is a different character from his predecessor.
The second indicator was Biden’s relentless focus on the concerns of the middle class. These sentences are usually a list of things the president wants Congress to approve. Biden is pushing a set of powerful bills covering more than $ 4 billion in new spending, as well as in immigration, voting rights and labor market reforms. But he spent more time framing his justification than checking what the bills included. The word “jobs” and “blue collar” kept repeating themselves. His main message was a “blue plan to rebuild America.” Approach climate change it creates jobs, he said. There was no need to talk about the melting of glaciers. It was a disciplined speech aimed fully at the middle class.
Corporate America he will not be satisfied with Biden’s war against tax evasion. Some of what Biden said, including his emphasis on “Buy American,” won’t go well with America’s international partners either. But none of Biden’s priorities should surprise anyone. During Donald Trump’s presidency, a joke was repeated that each week was “infrastructure week.” Whenever this release was announced, Trump would detonate his administration’s plans with some random initiative, usually via Twitter. If you accept its broad definition of infrastructure (which includes social spending and more), Biden’s first 100 days they have been a long week of infrastructure.
The third indicator was what Biden did not say. Many Democrats are concerned about the political dangers posed by the “awakened” cultural left of the Democratic Party. James Carville, who was Bill Clinton’s election guru, said this week: “Awakening is a problem and everyone knows it. Today it is difficult to talk to anyone. . . who does not say so. But they don’t want to say it out loud. ” Biden did not throw any bones in his speech at the intersectional areas of the left, which deprived his conservative detractors of easy conversation points. Words like “Latinx” and phrases like “transgender bath,” which present the main democratic discourse, do not appear. This conveyed an astute reading of his party’s Achilles heel.
Biden’s speech showed American politics at a surreal moment in its history. As a veteran centrist, Biden surprises the country and the world with the multimillion-dollar scale of his ambitions. But he sets out his plans in the popular tones of a homily of grandparents. Across the aisle is a Republican party that analyzes everything Biden does to find signs of cultural senility and radicalism. It betrays no trace of the former and offers very little. Contrary to recent viral rumors, Americans will still be able to eat burgers on July 4th. No doubt Biden will eat his in sight.
edward.luce@ft.com
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