Don’t bet against US — or President Biden

SAN DIEGO — America the resilient. That was a major theme of President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. And it worked.

You have to give credit to the White House speechwriters who — with a likely assist from Pulitzer-winning author and historian Jon Meacham — transformed a string of negatives into one big positive.

Who needs “amber waves of grain” or “purple mountain majesties” when you have the strength to take a roundhouse punch and still get up off the mat?

America wasn’t built for individuals who glide through life without mistakes, failures or setbacks. In a nation of second chances, Americans don’t trust perfect. They understand adversity. They put their trust in resilience. They love a comeback.

We should be teaching our children this lesson. You don’t have to succeed at everything, we should say. Resilience is more valuable. Bet on it. In the contest between perfect and resilient, the latter always wins.

Before the speech, pundits wondered how Biden could possibly claim — as most presidents do — that the State of the Union was strong given that the country faces so many challenges, at home and abroad.

Biden did have a story to tell. This administration can tout several significant accomplishments. They include the cutting of gas prices, the creation of millions of new jobs, the lowering of the jobless rate to 3.4% and the passage of historic legislation to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.

Yet these remain uncertain times. The nation’s worries include inflation, the possibility of a recession, Chinese spy balloons, Russia doubling down on its aggression toward Ukraine, chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border, police violence, frayed race relations and deep political divisions that seem to only be getting deeper.

Instead of denying America’s struggles, Biden leaned into them and told a different but familiar story — one of making lemonade out of lemons.

“The story of America is a story of progress and resilience, of always moving forward, of never ever giving up,” the president told members of Congress and the nation.

Direct hit. If the United States has a superpower, that’s it. “It’s a story unique among all nations,” Biden said. “We’re the only country that has emerged from every crisis we’ve ever entered stronger than [when] we got into it. Look, folks — that’s what we’re doing again.”

The president’s prescription for healing the country harked back to a former occupant of the Oval Office who, because he had polio, knew a thing or two about personal resilience: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“We’re not powerless before the forces that confront us,” Biden said. “It’s within our power, of ‘We the People.’ We’re facing the test of our time. We have to be the nation we’ve always been at our best — optimistic, hopeful, forward-looking.”

Or as FDR might have put it: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

This speech was not merely meant to reassure Americans that our country can meet its challenges. It was also supposed to convince them that our president can go the distance.

It turns out that Biden — while not perfect — is awfully resilient himself. There is no more valuable attribute to have in a president.

I can admit when I’m wrong. Ask my wife of 20 years. She’ll tell you that I’ve had plenty of practice being wrong.

After Biden’s disastrous first year in the White House, I joined the chorus of those — including some Democrats — who suggested that he had lost the spin off his fastball and was perhaps showing signs of cognitive decline. I said the president, then 78, was too old to meet the demands of the office. I even went as far as declaring the Biden presidency a failure.

Now Biden is 80, and his master-class performance at the State of the Union proved me wrong on all counts. He is obviously running for reelection, and he showed that his political skills are sharp as ever. Biden concluded his remarks the way other presidents have. “So I have come to fulfill my constitutional obligation, to report on the State of the Union,” he said. “And here is my report. 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.”

The same can be said for President Biden.