Clapping, Standing, Sitting
State of the Union Address 2024
It’s difficult to watch a room filled with greedy and reprehensible people celebrating their failure to represent the American people, while the majority of them also support the ongoing destruction of Ukraine, and of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Reportedly, President Biden was late getting started on his speech because of protesters blocking the way to the Capitol. His brief remarks about Palestinian victims of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government—and of himself—show, by their time spent during the speech, how much he’d rather not talk about it.
It’s embarrassing, I suppose, to provide food drops from cargo planes on the one hand, but on the other to aid Israel with their mass murder and ethnic cleansing campaign. Start the speech with Ukraine, President Biden. Go on at length about it, claim the Ukrainians are going to win a war against the alleged Hitler of our time, Vladimir Putin, and his superior military forces and strategy. Let’s pretend Zelensky’s Ukraine respects freedom and liberty while men get snatched off sidewalks and wrestled into vans to go “fight” well-trained Russian soldiers.
Biden, belligerent and loud, slurring his words by speech’s end, had nothing constructive to say about his country or anything else. Abundant cliches, yes, like “This is a great nation,” and “The economy is strong and growing,” but did he offer any hope that endless war will end? Did he offer a sensible and humane solution to illegal immigration? He talked about abortion rights. That’s rich, considering his party has never done anything to get Roe v. Wade codified, but rather uses it as a fundraising tool. In the audience, a large number of Democratic female politicians wore white, the color in this instance, symbolizing what, I’m not sure. All of them, I am sure, will do nothing for abortion rights, anymore than they will help Palestinian women not get blown to pieces by American bombs or shot by Israeli snipers.
For an hour and seven minutes Biden spouted a monologue with nothing substantial to back it up. Democratic politicians stood and clapped many times, the usual routine in these affairs. It was likely Biden’s last State of the Union Address. He’ll either be replaced before November or he’ll lose to Donald Trump. It looks that way to me, anyway. From all the smiling faces in that room, it looked more like a retirement party than an official occasion.