By RJ Caster

To play on Michael Gerson’s turn of phrase President Biden seems to be assisted by the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” This plays into his favor so long as he is able to string together more than a half dozen polysyllabic words during a speech. As a result the X-verse (formerly Twitter-verse) was alive with a buzz from the “progressive but not that progressive coalition trying to carry President Biden through the convention and onto the general election.” One Democratic operative celebrated on X, “The danger they had in setting expectations so low for President Biden’s #SOTU is that he’s not only exceeding all expectations, he’s giving the best speech I’ve heard from him in 20 years.” I always joke that I set the bar low for myself, because then I can only succeed from there. That joke becomes a little more tragic when we’re using it to reference the leader of the free world… 

Truth be told, this was not a typical policy-laden State of The Union. There were head nods to policy advancements and policy goals. The Democratic Party of old tried to poke through with his tip of the hard-hat to America’s workers and unions; but that came about halfway into his speech. The majority of last week’s State of the Union wasn’t an update to Congress or Americans as a whole. This was President Biden’s convention speech, because there is a lingering worry in Biden-world that he may not get one in August. 

'My predecessor'
President Biden laid the groundwork for the general election rematch between himself and former-President Trump; referring to Trump over a dozen times as “my predecessor” without saying his name. The speech started out with Democracy being under assault, which is a top polling issue for core Democratic supporters. He then was sure to hit on abortion and the Dobbs decision, an issue the Democrats have successfully tied to the IVF ruling out of Alabama. After mocking the Supreme Court justices to their face over the Dobbs ruling (moments after decrying the assault on Democracy’s institutions, ironically), only then did President Biden pivot to the issue of jobs and the economy. 

President Biden worked down the checklist of issues that were important to Democrats, and in that order. But polling from Echelon Insights shows the huge disconnect between Biden’s staunch supporters, versus what is essentially everyone else -- including people who tepidly support Biden. Even CNN has found that people have come out of President Biden’s State of the Union addresses with less and less positive outlook year-over-year, with this year being the lowest positive rating yet. 

In the end President Biden was successful in making the people who already supported him breathe a sigh of relief that he didn’t embarrass himself, and them by extension. He gave his convention speech as though he was auditioning to give the convention in August. And speaking of conventions in Chicago… if the Israeli/Gaza situation doesn’t work towards a solution, the Democrats might be able to look forward to reliving 1968 if last night’s protests in the streets of DC are any indication.

Caster is CEO of Jacksonville, Florida-based Techne Media.