We heard a lot of Democrats and their operatives in the media extolling Joe Biden's angry mess of a State of the Union.
It was inevitable that they would claim he did wonderfully because he managed to survive the hour and didn't fall off the stage. Here are a couple of the bad lapdog media takes.
the people yapping for so long about Biden not being up to the job look pretty dumb this morning
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) March 8, 2024
"Joe Biden owned the Republicans in every way... It was an incredible night for the president and I don't know if the Republicans understood just how negative they looked."
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) March 8, 2024
— @morningmika on the SOTU pic.twitter.com/9MrbUu5gEH
Republicans looked negative? Joe Biden was the "angry old man," who yells at the clouds or tells the kids to get off his lawn.
Here he was directly threatening the Supreme Court in a move that is truly wrong and unprecedented, but hasn't gotten the attention it should because there was so much that was off in the rest of what he said.
Joe Biden THREATENS the Supreme Court:
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 8, 2024
"With all due respect, Justices, Women are not without electrical power! Excuse me, electoral or political power. You're about to realize just how much you're..."#SOTU pic.twitter.com/KkZqS7OqI6
None of them looked happy with Biden.
Even Kentaji looks pissed pic.twitter.com/F7UfqTkpHQ
— Skonz (@theonlyskonz) March 8, 2024
But Democrats are pointing to a CNN poll that shows a majority responded positively to the SOTU as "evidence" of their point.
Except there's a little thing that the Democratic operatives and media pointing to the poll are leaving out: context.
Indeed, it's the Washington Post, of all places, that's acknowledging the problem with the Democrats' arguments. CNN says that 65 percent of viewers had a positive response to the speech, with a shift to those who thought the country was heading in the right direction up 17 points.
The problem, as the WaPo points out, is that the viewers are heavily skewed to supporters, in this case, Democrats and their SOTU addresses always get favorable reviews. So this is not a good indicator of what Americans in general think about what was said.
Here's the real kicker:
The 65 percent who had a positive view of the speech was actually lower than any such speech CNN has polled in the past quarter-century — the previous low being Donald Trump’s 2018 address (70 percent).And the 35 percent who offered a “very” positive review was effectively tied with Biden’s speech last year (34 percent) for the lowest on record. The next lowest were Biden’s 2022 speech and George W. Bush’s 2007 speech, which each earned “very” positive marks from 41 percent of viewers.
The shift is not even unusual.
The 17-point shift toward the country moving in the “right direction” was also unremarkable, historically speaking. Dating back to Bill Clinton’s 1998 State of the Union address, viewers have shifted an average of 15 points toward that more optimistic view.
Oh, and there's this for history, Trump, of course, did better, even with a close audience size.
In Trump’s 2017 and 2018 speeches, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by just five percentage points in CNN’s sample. Trump’s reviews in those speeches were still stronger than Biden’s on Thursday: 78 percent positive (including 57 percent “very” positive) in 2017, and 70 percent positive reviews (including 48 percent “very” positive) in 2018.
Not only that, but viewers' opinion of Biden is continuing to go down; this is his worst one yet.
Positive vs Negative reax from those who watched Biden's SOTUs (SSRS for CNN):
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) March 8, 2024
2021 78% 22%
2022 71% 29%
2023 72% 28%
2024 65% 35%
His worst performance by far. Keep in mind viewership skews D.https://t.co/r6bnPOJ37n
So this isn't exactly something to brag about.
This was a speech to try to convince the base to hang in there with him and not swap him out.
If they deluded themselves into thinking that, there isn't a new younger version of Joe coming. There's only so much you can do to pump him up; it's not a sustainable thing over a long period of time.
They may have just cooked themselves by convincing enough of the base to keep him in. In which case, keep right on going.
Read More:
Why Can't Joe Biden Understand the Difference Between Leadership and Anger and Yelling?
WH Just Clarified What Biden Said on Laken Riley and Stepped in It Even More
Join the conversation as a VIP Member