A year ago, I put myself through viewing the entirety of President Biden's State of the Union Address so that I could record my own stream of conscious thoughts throughout the evening. It actually made the tiresome spectacle a little more tolerable.
So I decided to do it again.
It was rough. But here, in chronological order, are the thoughts that coursed through my brain as President Biden stumbled through his speech last evening.
If it seems like this bounces around from topic to topic without any flow, I was just following the president's lead.
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It's now 9 pm and the president is starting his way through the chamber.
- Oh man he looks old and feeble.
- You already shook the speaker's hand, why are you doing it again?
- Oh geez, he's starting out by shouting.
- And he's shaking McCarthy's hand for the 3rd time. Nice gesture I suppose. A little much.
- What is he trying to say about Schumer? Everyone is leaning forward right now to try to help him through it. Not sure it's gonna help.
- Okay he just waved it off and moved on.
- Nancy's not Speaker, but she still made it on camera. She's rubbing her knuckles again. I'm scared.
- Greatest threat to democracy since the Civil War. Gosh that is such an embarrassing thing to say. I don't care about politics. That's just dumb.
- Nope. No foreign leader has ever asked Joe Biden to define America for them. No one actually believes they do. That's a terrible line.
- Hey, am I being pedantic to bristle at the line "COVID shut our country down?" COVID didn't. The government did. There's a big difference there, right?
- Oh no…speaking of COVID...Bernie mittens meme meet the Bernie mask meme.
- I should be paying attention but I am thinking about those people in Turkey and Syria right now. I hope the president mentions them and urges Americans to pray for them. I wish he would have started that way.
- Okay his yelling brought me back. I am appreciative of the closed captioning because he's part mumbling/part speed-reading this and it's hard to catch.
- "I'm building an economy where no one is left behind" seems like a really tone-deaf thing to say right now.
- This isn't a partisan thing. It's across party lines. I get really annoyed when presidents start bragging about spending a trillion dollars. How about some humility? It's not their money. It's not even ours. It's our grandkids' money.
- Why cap costs of just insulin? And why just $35? Let's cap the price of everything at $10. Laws of economics don't have to be enforced, right? Shocking that our leaders are either this dumb and irresponsible, or they are so confident that we are.
- Oh fantastic. Climate change time. Oh wait, he's calling it global warming again. And in case you're wondering, yes, it's still an "existential threat."
- And not enough people will notice this. "The inflation reduction act is also the most significant investment ever in climate change." That is a completely contradictory statement. It makes no sense. It's inexplicable.
- And here we go with the fair share talk. What is a "fair share?" Has anyone who says this line ever answered that question?
- Good news everyone – we'll be off oil in a decade. Love the fact that he got laughed at and then tried to backtrack a bit. Classic.
- I've never seen a president get into a bickering match with Congressmen like this. Maybe that's a lack of decorum on the part of the Republicans. Maybe it's a lack of statesmanship on the part of the president. Maybe it's just a little more British parliament approach. Honestly, it livens things up and if this is gonna continue to be a campaign speech every year, it at least makes it entertaining. From a public speaking perspective though, he isn't controlling this room though.
- Did he just say he loves conversion? I don't think that's what he meant to say.
- Ok, I'm all for consumer activism. But I don't want the government doing that. Why are they going after airline companies for hidden fees? Or credit card companies? I don't like junk fees, but let private enterprise handle this. We don't need government to do this stuff. Ban resort fees? Concert fees? Baggage fees and seat fees for planes. Why in heaven's name is the President of the United States talking about this?
- Oh good – Joe wants to take over preschools. That'll end well. He wants to give me a raise though as a public high school teacher. I'd be excited, except that isn't something the federal government does.
- I'm beginning to pick up on the fact that we've got a lot of "jobs to finish."
- Whoa – an admission! "While we were shutting down everything."
- Dude, it's almost 10 pm and there are as many "to read" pages left in his three-ring binder as there are on the "have read" side.
- Acknowledging the parents of Tyre Nichols. Did he just call him Tyler? Those poor people. Please don't make this about race. Please don't make this about race.
- He made it about race.
- Why is he saying this with Tyre's parents there? The officers were black. Everyone there knows that. This is tone deaf. I feel so badly for those parents.
- Here we go with the gun stuff. But yes, give that young man Brandon Tsay the credit he deserves. That's the highlight of the night for me. Hero.
- I can't pretend to think this nation is even remotely near the vicinity of God's will when nearly half the chamber stands up to applaud the call to see more tiny babies dismembered. God forgive us.
- I just don't know how a person can pivot from calling for more death of innocent, unborn children to challenging America to prevent the death of innocent, born Ukrainians.
- Dude just said "Strinth." The word is "strength."
- Oh man he mangled that reference to the Ukrainian ambassador. "Would you stand so we can all take a look at you?" That doesn't seem like a good thing to say.
- What is he yelling about "Name me one world leader who changed places with Xi Jingping!"? What does that even mean? No one seems to understand. I don't understand. You can't convince me that Joe understands.
- What's the yelling about regarding the Fentanyl crisis? It may be about the border, but if it's not, it should be. There is a crisis, and it's not a mystery that it's pouring into this country across the porous southern border.
- Political violence is a bad thing. It is dangerous. Odd that there's no mention of the political violence directed towards pregnancy resource centers. Or the assassination plot against Justice Kavanaugh. Just January 6th and Paul Pelosi. Weird.
- Joe Biden talking about an "inflection point" again. He has been talking about it for the last 3 decades. If there are that many, and if they happen that often, they aren't really "inflection points" at all.
- All people are made in the image of God? When do they get that image, Joe? Pretty sure it was less than 5 minutes ago, you were cool with snuffing out that image if it was deemed convenient to do so. What gives?
- Oh my goodness it's over. What time is it? What year is it? I feel like I've missed so much of real life for this.
- And for the parting shot they give us a glimpse of Kamala Harris standing and smiling, looking like she's on the verge of a cackle. Guaranteed she's thinking of Venn diagrams right now.
