Biden will try to lift US morale with his first State of the Union address

This content was published on February 28, 2022 – 15:26
February 28, 2022 – 15:26

(AFP)

With the world caught up in the storm of war in Ukraine, unpopular Joe Biden weighed down by several political failures will try to lift American morale on Tuesday when he delivers his first State of the Union address.

In this important ritual of the political life of the country, every year the president gives before the members of Congress a speech weighted a thousand times.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine plunges the world into fear and uncertainty, the 79-year-old Democrat will profess his “belief in the resilience and strength of the American people,” spokesman Jen Psaki said in an interview with ABC. on Sunday.

This weekend, two simultaneous announcements on the sidelines of this State of the Union address offered a glimpse into the Biden presidency, which since January 2021 has alternated with few breaks with major crises.

– Without a mask, with fences –

First Announcement: According to new instructions issued nationwide, mask wearing will be optional inside the Capitol at the time of the speech. Therefore, Biden will be able to demonstrate his response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which finally appears to be easing in the United States.

Second announcement: The billboards that were placed around the building for six months after the storming of supporters of former Republican President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, will be returned for the president’s speech.

The decision to protect Congress is a stark reminder to Biden that his promise to reconcile a deeply divided America remains elusive, as fans on Saturday again welcomed Donald Trump at the major annual conference of American conservatives.

He’s an unpopular president who will speak on Tuesday evening, at 9:00 p.m. local time (0:00 GMT on Wednesday).

According to the latest survey published by ABC, their confidence index — which began declining mid-last year after the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan — has fallen to 37% among Americans, exasperated by the sharp rise in inflation and fed up with the coronavirus pandemic.

Joe Biden himself appears to be having increasing difficulty, during his public appearances, in expressing a conviction that the warm optimism that has, in more than 40 years of his political career, become his trademark.

– inheritance –

In an effort to bolster his country’s confidence, the 46th President of the United States will recall some successes: the economy and employment are booming, he has launched a plan for massive infrastructure investments, he has just appointed a black woman, Ketanji Brown Jackson for the first time to the Supreme Court…

Internationally, in the face of the invasion of Ukraine, Biden has so far been able to dissolve relations between the United States and its Western allies.

But many Republicans accuse him of not being tough enough in the face of Vladimir Putin’s brutality. And at the national level, the president has had to bury two important campaign promises, unable to take advantage of the weak majority that Democrats have in Congress.

Biden, who could have lost that majority in this year’s midterm legislative elections, was unable to get the pharaonic social spending program to agree to electoral law reform.

The Democratic president himself, who has not ruled out running again in 2024, is already thinking aloud what memory he will leave in the electorate.

In an interview broadcast on YouTube on Saturday Brian Tyler Cohen, a progressive political columnist, said, “I hope my legacy will be to return some decency and honor to the office of the president, to get back to giving the middle class a real chance. To succeed, rebuild our shattered international alliances and gather people together again.

“I think we’re making slow progress on some of these things,” he admitted.