There is no reason to continue with the absurd, monarchical tradition of a State of the Union Speech. Joe Biden's performance was abysmal and shameful: And only goes to show why we ought to stop with this absurd, unnecessary farce.
For starters, his decision to berate the court was uncouth and violation of the spirit of the separation of powers doctrine. Yelling at Supreme Court Justices is well beyond the pale. First, and let's be very clear as old Joe is quite senile, the SCOTUS cannot take away freedoms: It is, at best, failing to stop other branches from taking away your freedom. Even with their ruling, it is still the legislature "taking away your freedom." Judicial review prevents other branches of government from acting, the court took no action regarding abortion itself: Any punishment you experience, any freedom you lose, has to be taken from you by the legislature first. The SCOTUS could stop ruling on issues of Constitutionality entirely and if the legislature took care to follow the Constitution when drafting laws, your rights would be intact.
Every aspect of the speech gives the impression that Joe is sliding off the rails: A fact that I hope most people have come to acknowledge. Even if you hate Trump, I don't see how anyone can fail to see that Biden is an angry, ill-behaved, senile incompetent who has done very little but take credit for a tight labor market, which is not his doing and is clearly a mixed blessing; it is a byproduct of a large number of people exiting the workforce during Covid. His long-standing record of weakness with respect to military affairs has encouraged our enemies to attack us and our allies: Russia in Ukraine, Iran through the Houthis and their attacks in the Red Sea, and China with increasingly brazen violations of our sovereignty.
Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that the media narrative that Trump is a dangerous insurrectionist is correct: His anger, such as it is, is aimed at the government. What troubles me about Biden is that his anger is aimed at a subset of the people; Trump supporters and, increasingly, people who simply don't support him or believe that he is competent to hold the position. [His anger at the SCOTUS being a notable exception that it disturbing in its own right.]
The speech lacked coherence: He meandered from topic to topic like a crazy old man. One has to wonder how this was allowed to happen: Who wrote this speech? Was it the same lunatic who wrote the speech Biden gave in front of the blood-red lit tower some years back? Did Biden go off script? And the speech was not a State of the Union Speech; it was a campaign stump speech: Nothing in it resembled an update on the country and its current condition.
If the State of the Union is going to become a mere campaigning event, I would rather it be replaced with a formalized report---after all, the Constitution does not require it to be an in-person speech; indeed, while Washington read his State of the Union addresses live, Jefferson did away with the practice, simply sending Congress a written speech that would be read into the record by a clerk. It was only with Woodrow Wilson that the practice of delivering a speech in person returned---with some controversy, I might add.
I think Thomas Jefferson was correct: There is no need for all this pomp and circumstance, esp. if instead of an informative update on the status of the country (which it rarely is) this is just going to be a campaign speech for the incumbent.
Thank you!! I appreciate your comments because I know you're not a MAGA apologist, on the awful SOTU after listening to all the ridiculous MSM praise for it, which was driving me nuts (a short drive too, ha). I know you mentioned it, but I don't think it cant be emphasized enough what a trashing of norms this partisan speech was. SOTU is not supposed to be a stump speech or convention acceptance speech. No one cares anymore, but of course there would be a full on media and Dem meltdown if Trump ever went so partisan in a SOTU a few years ago.