The State of Our Union
The president delivers the State of the Union message before a joint session of Congress tonight, with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds delivering the official Republican response afterwards.
I have a sense that many of you will take issue with much of what the president says tonight. For that matter, so will many in his own party, as evidenced by the fact that progressives within the Democrat party are delivering their own response to Biden; as one analyst said, that’s sort of like sacking your own quarterback.
Not that anyone asked, but here’s my assessment of the State of Our Union—in short, divided.
All presidents claim they will represent all Americans, but this one really emphasized that approach. Yet barely a year into his term, we as a citizenry are more fragmented and divided than before—and that’s saying something.
Distrust of government continues to climb, and understandably so. The government that claimed we all needed to follow the science on COVID continues to take action based not on science, but on political expediency. Congress suddenly decided masks are no longer required, coincidentally the day before Biden’s address. Even the state of New York, with the most draconian shutdown rules, have backed away from certain requirements—but not until Biden speaks and apparently says it’s okay to do so, since his team has controlled COVID.
The split between big cities and the rest of this country continues to grow wider. We see smash-and-grab violence in major cities and nothing being done about it; hard for those of us in the Heartland, many of whom still don’t lock the doors of their homes, to understand. The collectivism that is the drumbeat of those in failed big city governments strikes us as odd, since we were correctly taught that you made your own way in the world and if were looking for a helping hand, you looked only as far as the end of your arm.
We believe in the honor of America and the concept of American exceptionalism, meaning we are still shocked by the devastating U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last fall, and the U.S. leading from behind in the current Russia/Ukraine conflict.
We also have a hard time understanding why the current administration is so concerned about protecting a border in Ukraine, when it is actively erasing the southern border of our own country.
There’s far more, but you get the idea. Whether red vs. blue, rural vs. urban, or however you want to define the disagreements…this is really a pivotal and unsettling time. The state of our citizens remains strong…but the state of our union is quite fragile. Not that you’ll hear that tonight.
