Los momentos de tensión que se vivieron en el Congreso de EEUU durante el discurso del Estado de la Unión de Biden / Biden makes his case to Americans in the State of the Union
A lo largo de la intervención del mandatario estadounidense se repitió una imagen que captaba la distancia entre demócratas y republicanos
Las ovaciones demócratas frente a las caras largas de los republicanos, el calor de unos frente a los reproches de otros, que protagonizaron el segundo discurso del Estado de la Unión de Joe Biden dejaron claro que la relación de la Casa Blanca con el nuevo Congreso va a ser muy complicada.
A lo largo del discurso se repitió una imagen que captaba la distancia entre ambos partidos.
El propio Biden dejó en evidencia la situación, que atravesaba las pantallas de televisión, al incluir un chiste sobre las relaciones entre demócratas y republicanos en su saludo al presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, Kevin McCarthy.
“Señor presidente no quiero arruinar su reputación, pero espero con gran interés trabajar junto con usted”, expresó entre risas.
El entusiasmo de Harris, sentada detrás de Biden, frente a la quietud de McCarthy -que por respeto al orador, no obstante, aplaudió en ocasiones- reflejaban el sentir de los dos partidos. Aunque en la bancada los republicanos hicieron más ruido que su líder.
Nada más entrar al hemiciclo, las palabras que cruzó Biden con algunos congresistas ya dieron que hablar, con un saludo al republicano Matt Gaetz, aliado del ex presidente Donald Trump, y un encuentro de miradas sin apretón de manos con el joven George Santos, en la cuerda floja tras saberse que incluyó información falsa en su currículum.
En un Capitolio vallado por seguridad, Biden aludió al asalto del 6 de enero de 2020 como “la batalla nacional más grande desde la guerra civil” y ningún republicano se levantó de su escaño para apoyar sus palabras, ni siquiera McCarthy.
Además, Biden tuvo que escuchar algunos abucheos por parte de los republicanos, así como el insulto de “mentiroso” propiciado por la congresista cercana a Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, quien respondió así al momento en que el presidente acusaba a los conservadores por querer recortar la seguridad social y la sanidad.
Un incidente que recordó al grito de “¡mientes!” del republicano Joe Wilson al entonces presidente Barack Obama (2009-2017) en el discurso sobre el Estado de la Unión en 2009, por el que fue amonestado por la Cámara de Representantes posteriormente.
Horas antes del discurso, Marjorie Taylor Greene se había paseado por los pasillos del Capitolio con un globo blanco en alusión al globo espía chino que sobrevoló el territorio de EEUU la semana pasada, asegurando que lo llevaría al hemiciclo. Al final no lo llevó, aunque si fue vestida de este color.
McCarthy mandó callar sin éxito a sus compañeros de partido cuando el discurso escaló a las muertes por fentanilo, que muchos conservadores achacan a la situación migratoria en la frontera con México.
Los republicanos responsabilizaron al presidente del problema al grito de “es tu culpa”, a lo que añadieron otro: “Cierra la frontera”.
El aplauso a la madre y el padrastro de Tyre Nichols, el joven afroamericano que murió a principios de enero en Memphis (Tennessee) después de que varios policías le propinaran una paliza, fue uno de los pocos momentos en el que coincidieron ambos partidos.
Algunos congresistas demócratas aprovecharon para llevar su causa al hemiciclo, como el congresista Maxwell Frost, quien optó por llevar un pin del “March for our lives”, en contra de la violencia por armas de fuego.
Frost, junto al congresista demócrata Greg Casar, llevó como invitado especial al padre de Joaquin Oliver, muerto a los 17 años en la masacre de Parkland (Florida), en un intento de arrojar luz sobre la epidemia de violencia con armas de fuego.
Por su parte, la demócrata Madeleine Dean combinó una insignia de la palabra “aborto” con un lazo azul y amarillo en apoyo a Ucrania. Asimismo, Biden saludó a la embajadora ucraniana, Oksana Markarova, que asistió al discurso invitada por la Casa Blanca.
Otra de las invitadas, esta vez por la demócrata Debbie Wasserman Schultz, fue Anabelys Lopes, de origen brasileño, conocida porque en su momento tuvo que desplazarse de Florida a Washington para abortar, ya que en su estado no tenía acceso a un aborto seguro a causa de la legislación impuesta por los republicanos.
Todos ellos escucharon un discurso lleno de mensajes a los republicanos, a los que Biden pidió una y otra vez trabajar conjuntamente, aunque sin dejar de reprocharles muchas de sus posiciones.
En el exterior, algunos bares de Washington no quisieron perderse la oportunidad de seguir las palabras de Biden y las reacciones de los republicanos, por lo que ofrecieron planes especiales para la ocasión.
Como el Union Pub, que organizó un evento exclusivo por 150 dólares con lotes de bebida y comida. Según el diario The Hill, el mismo bar aprovechó el drama de la votación del mes pasado para elegir portavoz de la Cámara Baja, con un paquete prémium por 218 dólares.
(Con información de EFE)
Biden makes his case to Americans in the State of the Union
In a fighting State of the Union address, President Biden made few concessions to public skepticism about his record—and none to his political adversaries. He made it clear that he intends to run on his record and that the American people will respond favorably to it as they experience its benefits more fully. He focused on the economy and downplayed the cultural issues that have become more central to our politics over the past decade.
As President Biden stepped to the rostrum to deliver his address, he faced three key tasks: laying out a credible policy agenda for the 118th Congress, integrating this agenda with his political strategy for winning reelection in 2024, and dispelling widespread public doubts about the impact of increasing age on his fitness for a second term.
The president also faced several important obstacles. First, as my colleague Elaine Kamarck has written, there is a tension between the story of accomplishment he wanted to tell and the public’s perception of how things are going. As Kamarck noted, a recent NBC poll found that 71% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track—a continuation of what the pollsters called an unprecedented level of “sustained pessimism.”
A few days after her article appeared, a new ABC/Washington poll underscored Mr. Biden’s challenge. The poll found that 62% of Americans think that the president has accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing” during the first two years of his presidency, compared to just 36% who say he has accomplished “a great deal” or a “good amount.” In a troubling sign, only 32% of Independents gave him credit for significant achievements. Mr. Biden needed to talk about the many significant bills he had moved through Congress—without describing their effects so expansively as to undermine his credibility.
Mr. Biden also faced tension between ambitious new domestic policy proposals and rising public concerns about the budget deficit. In the two years since he took the oath of office, according to a Pew Research Center survey released the day before his address, the share of Americans saying that deficit reduction should be a top priority surged by 15 points, from 42% to 57%. This increase was bipartisan—17 points among Republicans, but also 15 points among Democrats. The president had to choose between pleasing key constituencies pressing for expensive items such as a permanent child credit and responding to broad-based worries about the country’s fiscal course. Everyone expected him to reject Republicans’ efforts to tie an increase in the debt ceiling to big cuts in government spending. But would he open the door to negotiations in what he regards as the correct framework—crafting a budget for fiscal year 2024 and beyond?
Mr. Biden had to decide, moreover, how to deal with issues—such as crime and immigration—on which the public has given him especially low marks. The Economist/YouGov survey released at the end of January found that only 33% of the electorate approved of his handling of immigration and even fewer—30%—of his handling of crime. (His showing among Independents was especially dismal—just 23% and 19%, respectively.)
Finally, the president needed to make important decisions about his tone. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama—the two most recent Democratic presidents who faced new House Republican majorities after just two years in office—opened their addresses with warm words for the new Republican Speaker. Would Mr. Biden do the same? Would he emphasize that most of his legislative successes had been bipartisan and urge the continuation of this cooperation in the new congress? Would he use the phrase “extreme MAGA Republicans,” which many Republicans (reportedly including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy) regard as an obstacle to cooperation? How would Mr. Biden deal with the adjective problem: The state of the union is [fill in the blank]? If he declared it to be “strong,” as many of his predecessors had, would most Americans feel that he was out of touch? Would he use more tempered words, or avoid the phrase completely?
As President Biden began speaking, many of these questions were quickly answered. In addition to Democratic leaders past and present, he congratulated the new speaker and—for good measure—his long-term colleague, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He underscored the bipartisan accomplishments of the 117th Congress and expressed confidence that the two parties could work together in the 118th. “The people sent us a clear message,” he declared. “Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere.” Consistent with this theme, he refrained from all references to Republicans as MAGA or extreme. He delivered his speech forcefully if not flawlessly, adding no new fuel to questions about his fitness to serve a second term.
The president made no concessions to public skepticism about his accomplishments. He told the story of what he had done so far, bolstering his case with positive statistics about jobs and the economy. He talked of “progress and resilience,” doing his best to rebut the pervasive belief that the country was on the wrong track.
Mr. Biden spoke, as he often has, about building the economy from the bottom up and the middle out. He characterized his strategy as a “blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America.” As he laid out his plan, his tone turned populist and nationalist. “We should buy America to build America. We’ve been importing foreign goods and exporting American jobs,” he said, trends his proposals will reverse.
Continuing the populist tone, he repeatedly criticized large corporations. He pledged to toughen antitrust enforcement and crack down on abuses of consumers by banks, airlines, and drug companies, among others. To encourage corporations to invest more in their workers, he proposed quadrupling the current 1% tax on stock buybacks.
These and other features of the president’s speech signaled an important part of his reelection strategy—increasing Democrats’ share of the working-class vote, which fell to historically low levels during the 2016 and 2020 elections. He clearly believes that his party’s weakness among these voters reflects economic rather than cultural issues. Many analysts disagree with him, and we won’t know who’s right until November of 2024.
President Biden did not abandon his ambitious domestic agenda. He put back on the table items that a Democratic House and Senate did not enact during his first two years, including paid family and medical leave, affordable childcare, pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, and the reinstatement of the Child Tax Credit. He pledged to pay for these and the many other programs by increasing taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals who use special-interest provisions of the tax code to avoid paying what the president called “their fair share.” And he proposed a new tax on stock buybacks—a practice that many see as profiting shareholders at the expense of workers. “The math adds up,” he insisted. “We can reduce the deficit by $2 trillion without touching Social Security and Medicare.”
In one of his best moments of the night, Biden went on the attack, accusing “some” Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare. (He was referring to Senator Rick Scott’s plan to sunset all federal programs.) This drew strong objections from Republicans in the audience who heckled him about this, knowing that being associated with Scott’s proposal meant touching the third rail of American politics. Rather than ignoring this interruption, Biden engaged with the objectors and, in a masterful moment of political jujitsu, concluded that they agreed with him not to touch those programs. Time will tell, but he may have won the debt ceiling debate then and there.
The president touched on the issues—crime and immigration—about which the people have given him his lowest marks, but he had nothing new to offer. And to the surprise of some, and the relief of many, he was silent on the issues—including critical race theory and the role of parents—that have roiled public education in recent years.
During the conclusion of his speech, President Biden firmly resolved what I called the adjective problem. “Because the soul of this nation is strong, because the backbone of this nation is strong, because the people of this nation are strong, the State of the Union is strong,” he declared. He left no doubt about the depth of his conviction. The question is whether he persuaded enough of his fellow citizens that he is right.
by William A. Galston / Wednesday, February 8, 2023
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