Biden’s speech to Congress is a once unthinkable call for transformation
It has always been Washington’s version of the Oscars: a primetime TV audience, an overlong speech and fierce disagreement among critics.
On Wednesday, Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress, on the eve of his first 100 days in office, followed the Academy Awards with a small, physically distanced gathering that, given the US president’s love of trains, might have switched to a railway station too.
His 65-minute speech, the most important since his inauguration 99 days ago, could be summed up with three Bs: Big (in ambition), Boring (at times) and Bipartisan (or maybe not so much, judging by Republican grimaces).
It will not go down as a rhetorical masterpiece, but nor will it be seen as the cringeworthy equivalent of a tearful Oscar acceptance speech. Instead, in the sparsely populated chamber of the House of Representatives, it laid out a transformative presidency and offered some more healing for postTrump stress disorder.
Indeed, even in the extraordinary circumstances of a global pandemic, with masked members sitting several seats apart on the floor and in the public gallery, this scene felt more ordinary than when Donald Trump delivered red meat to raucous cheers from Republicans and boos, heckles and sorrowful head shakes from Democrats.
The Trump era culminated in a deadly insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January with members cowering in the public gallery of this very chamber, with agents pulling guns to keep the mob at bay. On Wednesday night, as the first lady, Jill Biden, entered the gallery to cheers on Wednesday evening, all that felt like a lifetime ago.
Instead, the new age was best summed up in a single image: behind “Uncle Joe”, the 78-year-old white man at the lectern, sat two women, Vice President Kamala Harris and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi – both from deeply liberal California.
“Madam Vice-President,” Biden said. “No President has ever said those words from this podium … and it’s about time.” Harris and Pelosi exchanged glances above their masks.
The tableau was a vivid reminder that Biden’s discovery of progressive politics did not come to him as a sudden revelation. He has always been roughly in the middle of the Democratic party. As the party moved left, so he moved with it. An old dog can learn new tricks but it takes some prompting.
That led him to Wednesday night’s once unthinkable menu of grand plans for coronavirus relief, building infrastructure and helping families, measured not in billions but trillions of dollars. In the choice between going big and going bipartisan, big is winning, remaking America with government at the centre.
“My fellow Americans, trickle-down economics has never worked,” he said, effectively sounding the death knell for Ronald Reagan’s low-tax logic that has been Republican religion for four decades and within which even Bill Clinton and Barack Obama operated. “It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and middle out.”
Senator Bernie Sanders, sitting on the House floor, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, up in the balcony, visibly lapped it up. Both were forced to endure four years of Trump blasphemies in this very room. Their time has come and Biden is the unlikely vessel.
“The American Jobs Plan is a blue-collar blueprint to build America,” Biden said. “And it recognises something I’ve always said. [There are] good guys and women on Wall Street, but Wall Street didn’t build this country. The middle class built this country. And unions build the middle class.”
He talked about green energy and corporate tax reform and described healthcare as “a right, not a privilege”. Democrats were delighted by it all, rising to their feet and clapping with such enthusiasm that it almost compensated for their diminished numbers.
Republicans joined in when Biden warned of the threat posed by China (“deadly earnest on becoming the most significant, consequential nation in the world”) and struck some Trumpian notes about American products made in America. “There’s no reason the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.”
But they were silent, stony faced and riveted to their seats on many of the applause lines. Senator Lindsey Graham frowned, a hand to his chin. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, clapped limply if at all.
Hours earlier, perhaps seeing Harris and Pelosi in his mind’s eye, McConnell had warned: “Behind President Biden’s familiar face, it’s like the most radical Washington Democrats have been handed the keys, and they’re trying to speed as far left as they can possibly go before American voters ask for their car back.”
Biden did utter the word “bipartisan” several times but his pitch was framed about the costs of division and paralysis. “Doing nothing is not an option,” he warned. “We can’t be so busy competing with each other that we forget the competition is with the rest of the world to win the 21st century.”
The members in attendance had, like children at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, got golden tickets. Instead of the usual 1,600 people for a state of the union-style address, this time there were only 200 with no guests permitted (except virtually), because of coronavirus safety restrictions. Some tickets were decided on a first-comefirst-served basis, others by lottery.
Members greeted each other with fist bumps or elbow bumps. Chief Justice John Roberts was the only member of the supreme court present. The cabinet was represented by only two members, Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, the secretary of defense, meaning there was no need this time for a “designated survivor” – a senior official who typically stays away at a secure location in case catastrophe strikes.
Biden sought to end on a high note. “We have stared into an abyss of insurrection and autocracy – of pandemic and pain – and ‘We the People’ did not flinch. At the very moment our adversaries were certain we would pull apart and fail, we came together, we united,” he said.
They were stirring words but, like Sunday’s Oscars, ended in anticlimax. Whatever respect they’ve had for Biden over the years, when Republicans looked up at the dais, they were triggered by the sight of Harris and Pelosi looming behind him.
“Boring, but radical,” was the verdict of Senator Ted Cruz who, as if to prove it, looked like he was dozing off.