May wrestling fans – and I know there are many – forgive me, but it has been several decades since I got involved in these well-orchestrated scenes. That said, Joe Biden, the 81-year-old, gave a show on Thursday worthy of the best fights of the Rougeau brothers.
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The Rougeau brothers… that gives you an idea of my age. Joe Biden was also aware of his own and all the prejudices he inspires when delivering his State of the Union speech.
It’s impossible to see otherwise the passion he put not only into the achievements of his three years at the White House, but also the lines he had fun serving to Republican elected officials, who were quick to scold him.
These speeches to the nation, listened to by millions of Americans, are written and rewritten until the last moment and President Biden’s entourage has clearly focused on dispelling the idea that he is too old to continue to govern. the country.
TO HECK THE DECORUM!
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman Republican from Georgia, a caricature of the lack of subtlety with her red “Make America Great Again” cap (against the protocol in Congress), heckled Joe Biden several times.
Howls that the president’s advisers had obviously anticipated – better still, hoped for – since these exchanges are seen as opportunities for Biden to prove that he still has an easy and quick retort, thus breaking the senile shell that his detractors wish so much to attach to him.
ALL PORT SIDE!
Joe Biden did not just behave like a pugilist. The man may well be president, but he has shown no hesitation in wrapping himself in the populist cloak. Let his compatriots take it for granted, he is keen to see more chips in the bags: no more shrink-flation!
He also called for a reduction in credit card interest charges and a cap on the prices of prescription drugs which can be found – for the same drugs – cheaper in Toronto, Berlin and… Moscow. Without forgetting, of course, the good old Democratic promise to increase taxes on the richest.
A CHOICE TO MAKE
Joe Biden presented himself to Americans as an energetic man and defender of the interests of the middle class. Will this be enough to convince two-thirds of the people recently surveyed by the New York Times who say the country is heading in the wrong direction?
The White House sees things differently: voters have a choice to make between two candidates and two visions of the future. And on this level, his “predecessor”, as he designated Donald Trump without expressly naming him more than a dozen times, offers nothing new.
“The problem facing our nation is not our age; it is the age of our ideas. Hate, anger, revenge, punishment are the oldest ideas. But we can’t lead America with ideas that only take us backwards. »
Eighty percent of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the status quo, according to Gallup. It remains to be seen whether old Biden has managed, for the duration of a speech, to pass himself off as the more modern of the two.