The Dumbest Speech in Politics
Why the Response to the State of the Union Needs to Go
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden will fulfill his annual duty of delivering a speech on the State of the Union to Congress. Unlike every other speech a politician gives, this one is actually required by the Constitution.1
The President “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” Article II, Section 3, Clause 1.
It is one of the perks of the job. To stand up at the Speaker’s podium, Old Glory standing behind him, along with the Speaker of his left shoulder and the Vice President over his right. The President gets to set the agenda for the issues he wants to present to the American public, focus on what he wants to draw attention to and highlight the accomplishments he wants to highlight.
The President’s party goes through all sort of theatrics, giving standing ovations for the most mundane of statements, just because he ended the sentence with a punctuation. The out of power party always sits on their hands, bemused, cracking snide remarks like the mean kids from high school. This is an annual, boring cliche, but a required one.
In 1966, Senator Everett Dirksen and a then Representative Gerald Ford delivered the first RESPONSE to the State of the Union speech. It has become an annual event ever since and our political discourse has been the worse for it. It doesn’t matter which party delivers it and who the speaker is— its always painfully awful.
Every year it’s paraded as some great event for the out of White House party and every year it’s the most unnecessary thing Washington does. Do you even remember who gave it last year?2 It’s not even a real “response” since it is scripted well in advance of the speech and meant to be an “anti-” speech to the issues and positions of the President. This is not good for our governmental discourse in any way.
We’ve even gotten to a point where different caucuses of varying ideological stripes have to give their own response.3
Just. Please. Stop. Already.
Following Biden’s speech on Tuesday, new Governor of Arkansas Sarah Huckabee Sanders is slated to give the official Response to the State of the Union. If I were her I wouldn’t accept it no matter what they gave me. It’s not that I don’t think she can deliver a good speech, it’s that nobody cares. Many a highly qualified individual has given the response, and they almost always bomb. Here are the main reasons this speech is perennially a huge dud.
It’s anti-climactic. The main show of the evening is the President. He gets the pomp and circumstance, the prime time slot, the ovations. He gets the grand entry into Congress, the barker shouting out his name, the seat of power like a King’s throne. What does the response get? A bland set looking like something out of the ‘70s, dim lighting, no live audience and the timing of being an afterthought.
It’s scripted. Yes, the SOTU is scripted too, but there’s an extemporaneous aspect to it. The waves, the pointing out of important guests, the applause, groans, and occassional laughter. The response? You can deliver the greatest line ever and you hear crickets. It’s like watching a lecture without a powerpoint, chalkboard or even soapbox. Who wants to watch that?
The People Chosen. This is not a knock on them, but we’ve just spent an hour listening to the leader of the free world. To follow that with Joni Ernst, Bobby Jindal, Stacey Abrams or Joe Kennedy III just isn’t exciting. They’re destined to look inferior. The people who give the Response almost always fade or are perceived as lesser following it. It’s like a curse. It’s not like it has to be that way; the most successful Responses I’ve seen were by Nancy Pelosi and the Senate Leaders (one year Harry Reid, the other Tom Daschle) and the reason was simple, they were their party’s leaders, not an up and coming flash in the pan. Of course they had the benefit of delivering it against a President fighting two unpopular wars.
It’s unnecessary and unnewsworthy. The front pages all cover the SOTU. The Response seldom makes the front page and almost never is noteworthy. The only time it is noteworthy is when there is a faux pas of some kind, such as Marco Rubio taking a sip of water half way through or Bobby Jindal sounding like Kenny from 30 Rock.
So seriously, just let the President have his night. Let the pundits and spin rooms crow about this or that aspect of it. Let the papers start gabbing about it the next day. The REAL response to the State of the Union begins the morning after, and is spoken by the Congressional leaders and the paths they choose to go after that.
One night without a phony debate is not going to kill America.
Parting Thoughts
I am on vacation the next week. I will not be watching the State of the Union or the Response. But I also won’t be posting again until I come back. Cheers!
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Actually, a “speech” isn’t required, just a report. However, the State of the Union is one of the few opportunities a President gets to speak to the nation, and you can bet they always try to make the most of it. Frankly, I long for the day a President has the guts to just drop a piece of paper on the Speaker of the House’s desk saying, “It’s all good.”
Governor Kim Reynolds from Iowa.
“Working Families,” the “Congressional Black Caucus” and the “Problem Solvers Caucus” all delivered official responses to the State of the Union in 2022 on TOP of the official one given.