The State of the Union Wake-Up Call
By Halie Soifer
President Biden’s State of the Union address, both in its content and delivery, was an awakening for American voters. In addition to listing his accomplishments and vision, he issued a warning that “this is no ordinary moment.” Drawing on history and his own experience, he warned that “what makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas at the very same time.” More than three years after January 6th and two years after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it appears that half the country doesn’t care or is in a state of denial about threats to our democracy and freedom and what it means for our future. In other words, half of the country is in desperate need of a wake-up call before the 2024 election.
Republican critics of President Biden claimed that his State of the Union speech was “too political.” This too is a form of denial. Less than eight months before the presidential election, one cannot extricate politics from the challenges we face. Nor can we remove politics, or elections, from the path forward. Politics permeate even our most personal decisions — including those surrounding abortion, contraception, and IVF — given recent rulings of conservative-stacked courts. Politics are the reason Republicans chose to kill a bipartisan border security bill at the behest of Donald Trump, following his calculation that doing nothing was the most politically expedient path for Republicans in an election year. And politics are the reason that 147 Republicans refused to certify the 2020 election on January 6th, just hours after their lives were threatened by an insurrection incited by Donald Trump.
The faux outrage and claim that the State of the Union was too political is reminiscent of Republicans’ refusal to pass meaningful gun safety legislation. In those raw days after each mass shooting that plague our country, the GOP does nothing other than offering woefully insufficient “thoughts and prayers.” It’s irresponsible, negligent, and illustrative of the denial that exists among Republicans about both the threats we face and how to adequately address them. In addition, it demonstrates that political calculations have paralyzed the Republican Party from taking action.
The truth is that politics is both the problem and the solution — it is the cause of the largest challenges facing the American people, and the vehicle by which every American voter can have their voices heard. The President said as much in the State of the Union when he challenged ostensibly non-political Supreme Court Justices that they’re about to see the prescient nature of their declaration that “women are not without electoral or political power” in their now-infamous Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. As the President asserted, “When reproductive freedom was on the ballot, we won in 2022 and 2023. And we’ll win in 2024.”
Perhaps the most resonant part of Biden’s speech were the references to history. He likened this moment to 1941 and said, “it’s not hyperbole to suggest history is watching” our response to Putin’s march into Ukraine, just as history watched our response to insurrectionists marching into the Capitol. And yet, among the vast majority of Republicans, there is widespread denial about the threat to the world order posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, just as there’s denial about the threat posed by January 6th, election subversion, voter suppression, and other attacks on our democracy at home. Just look at Republicans’ refusal to pass military assistance for Ukraine, and repeated attempts to block legislation defending democracy and the right to vote. History is watching, and it will judge the GOP harshly for its repeated obstruction and inaction.
Among leaders in the American Jewish community, some have obfuscated the sharp distinctions between Trump and Biden, downplaying the threat posed by Trump and pointing instead to areas where they agree with his policy, particularly on Israel. This legitimizes Trump, despite the fact that his views are the antithesis of Jewish interests and values, including his stated intention to be a “dictator on day one,” as well as his record of emboldening of dangerous right-wing extremists, refusal to denounce white supremacy, and long history of trafficking in antisemitic tropes. On Israel, let’s not forget Trump’s mocking of the Israeli government four days after October 7, and praising Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed proxy with more than 100,000 rockets on Israel’s northern border.
Voting is the most powerful tool we have and the most impactful binary choice we can make to further our values. Those who look the other way–or choose not to vote–in 2024 are enabling the attacks on our democracy furthered by Donald Trump.
As President Biden told us, this is no ordinary moment and history is watching, just as it watched in 1941 as Hitler marched across Europe, and we all have a role to play. We must wake up before November 5 and vote to defend our democracy before it’s too late.
Halie Soifer is CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. She previously served as national security adviser to then-Sen. Kamala Harris, senior policy adviser to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power and foreign policy adviser to Sen. Chris Coons
