I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
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So, I’m still on deadline with the piece I mentioned earlier in the week, which means no Zoom chat this week and a slightly shorter post than usual. But I needed to say a few words about last night’s State of the Union.
I’ll grant you it’s a low bar, but last night's SOTU was hands down the best I’ve ever seen.
Joe Biden was en fuego. He was focused, determined, defiant, scrappy, salty, and angry. When Republicans heckled him, he hit them back just as hard, parrying with them like a seasoned and savvy politician, not a guy past his prime. This was Biden’s best speech as president and one of the best he’s ever delivered. I’m not usually this effusive about a speech, and particularly not a State of the Union, but Biden was in a rarefied air last night.
You don’t have to believe me; check out what purveyor of DC conventional wisdom, Peter Baker of the New York Times, had to say, “This was not Old Man Joe. This was Forceful Joe. This was Angry Joe. This was Loud Joe. This was Game-On Joe.”
SOTUs are not usually partisan affairs, but Biden threw that norm out the window and beat it with a stick. Thirteen times, he referenced his “predecessor,” Donald Trump. That is something that practically never happens in a State of the Union, which tends to focus on unity and policy over partisanship and campaigning. Every State of the Union is a political speech, and every SOTU in a first presidential term is a campaign speech. But this was REALLY a campaign speech.
Remember when Joe Biden ran for president in 2020 and portrayed himself as the guy who would reach across the aisle and make bipartisan deals with Republicans? Yeah, that guy doesn’t work here anymore. The Joe Biden of 2024 is a very different candidate — and if the SOTU is any indication, this campaign will be partisan, fiery, and nasty, and the president is prepared to leave everything on the field.
You’ll notice I’m six paragraphs into this recap, and I haven’t mentioned a single policy issue yet. To be sure, Biden took the unusual approach of leading off with foreign policy and excoriating Republicans for failing to pass a funding measure for Ukraine. He then pivoted to attacking them on abortion and IVF and even stared down the Supreme Court as he took a direct stab at them.
But this speech wasn’t about policy. It was about performance. Biden needed to reassure Democrats that he still has the fight in the belly to defeat Trump and that he understands the stakes in this election. From that perspective, this speech should not only give Democrats a much-needed boost after weeks of bad press for the White House and lousy poll numbers, but it will also likely silence the bedwetters and pearl clutchers in the party and the media.
I wrote last night on Twitter that while I'm sure this is an overreaction and I'm caught up in the moment -- this feels like a speech that will transform the 2024 campaign. Biden’s performance was so energetic and focused that I wonder if it changes the popular perception and media narrative around him. Biden did not look old, confused, or out of touch. If anything, he came across as a politician on top of his game. Ironically, he can thank Republicans and an age-focused media for setting the expectations bar absurdly low for this speech — and making it relatively easy for Biden to jump over it.
Sometimes, we forget that winning the presidency is the most difficult job in American politics and that only the best politicians are successful (Donald Trump in 2016 is a notable exception). Last night was a helpful reminder that Joe Biden is not perfect and has plenty of flaws, but the man is still pretty good at politics.
It will take a few weeks or even months to know if my hypothesis is borne out, but I would not be surprised if, when the post-mortems on the 2024 election are written, last night’s State of the Union is viewed as a significant turning point.
A Couple of Other Things
Speaker Mike Johnson is so bad at this. During Biden’s speech, he constantly rolled his eyes and shook his head—and didn’t stand and applaud even when Biden made an anodyne policy statement like calling for expanding tutoring and summer learning so that "every child learns to read by third grade." But his inability to keep a straight face is what truly stood out. Please let that guy show up at a poker table I’m playing at one of these days.
Alabama Senator Katie Britt’s GOP response was so cringe-worthy and awful that I had to turn it off. It could only be watched in small doses of minute-long or 90-second increments because the entire video is so uncomfortable it’ll make you want to hide under a pile of coats.
First of all, what idiot thought it was a good idea to put her in the kitchen as she delivered her remarks? Considering that a healthy segment of the GOP thinks The Handmaid’s Tale is an aspirational drama, the setting was just a bit too on the nose. Second, this was the most overemotive, poorly-delivered, squirm-inducting political speech I’ve ever seen. I loved Julia Ioffe’s comment that “The acting chops on display here are somewhere between porn and high school play.” Just watch this video … every second is pure comedy gold. How someone who is this outwardly phony and bad at public speaking could get elected to the US Senate is incredible. Then I remembered that Britt’s fellow Alabama Senator was Tommy Tuberville, which made sense.
Suffice it to say, everyone hated it - even Republicans.
Musical Interlude
This newsletter kicks some major ass. Great analysis -- and keep up the snark, it's fantastic! (I'm keeping in my repertoire: "it'll make you want to hide under a pile of coats.")