The State of the Union

2000-2023 | 23 years

This episode, although having many plots, leads up to one massive event for the President, the State of the Union.

Last night President Biden addressed Congress and the nation in the State of the Union. Many cited the speech as the start of his reelection campaign. He declared that the state of the Union was strong, focusing throughout his speech much more on Domestic issues rather than international ones. His speech was often interrupted by the cries of Republican lawmakers. However, President Biden seemed to relish in this, going off his prompter and engaging with them. The United State Congress is not known for being quite so rowdy. In fact, when in 2009, During President Obama’s State of the Union, South Carolina Republican Representative Joe Wilson yelled at President Obama “You lie!”, he was formally rebuked by the House. Speaker McCarthy was also seen shushing his caucus on multiple occasions. This all caused many to draw comparisons from last night’s House Floor to British Parliament.

President Biden spent a significant amount of his time talking about Health Care and the Economy. The President also focused in his speech on uplifting the middle class, and many news outlets have characterized the speech as “vintage Biden”.

One thing that was semi-shocking given the recent emphasis in the news cycle on foreign nations was the fact that the President did not spend a large amount of his time in his speech talking about either Ukraine or China. He did not explicitly mention the balloon, saying instead “But make no mistake: as we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.” He also pushed to try to make America more independent by using more products “made in America”.

He also seemed to try to extend an olive branch to Republicans, saying at the top of his speech to Speaker McCarthy “Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working together.”. Additionally, he said in his intro “Congratulations to the longest serving Senate Leader in history, Mitch McConnell.” He seemed to be trying to bridge the large chasm between the two parties, saying “...two years ago, our democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War…we’re often told that Democrats and Republicans can’t work together. But over these past two years, we proved the cynics and the naysayers wrong. Yes, we disagreed plenty. And yes, there were times when Democrats had to go it alone. But time and again, Democrats and Republicans came together…To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress…The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere.”

At the end of the episode, President Bartlet talks to Secretary of Agriculture Roger Tribby, who is the Designated Survivor for the night. The Secretary gives President Bartlet a gift of a copy of the Constitution translated into Latin, and they have a heart-to-heart about what the Secretary would do should the unimaginable happen. The Designated Survivor is the person in the line of succession who is chosen to not go to major events but rather stay in an undisclosed location. This is, as the name implies, so that should something happen and all the people at the event die, there is still someone alive who is knowledgeable and clearly designated to assume the office of the Presidency. This phenomenon has a show of its own, Designated Survivor, which has the Politics of The West Wing but is a much more action-filled thriller-type show. At President Biden’s State of the Union, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh was the Designated Survivor.