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Feb 8
That Was No Ordinary State of the Union — It Was an Historic Moment for America
The President's Manifesto for America's Next Revolution — And Why It's a Good One
So. The State of the Union. Did you watch it? How do you feel about it? Was it consequential, meaningless, or just meh? I'm going to try to keep this short and sweet, and I'm not going to mince words. Americans probably don't get it yet — but that was an historic State of the Union.
Right about now, you can bet the world's leaders woke up today, and watched Biden's speech, desperately, several times over, then sat down and debated it with their advisors and cabinet ministers. Because that was a State of the Union that will go down in history. No, I'm not kidding. Enough with the eye-rolls whenever someone brings up Biden — that's the feeling I get that Americans have these days, and let me say it loud and clear. That's wrong. The entire world is beginning to recognize Joe Biden as one of America's most consequential Presidents for decades.
So why aren't Americans?
I'll come back to that. First, like I said, suspend your judgment, because you need to learn, and I use that word in a precise way, learn, just why this an historic State of the Union.
What was it about? Biden covered many, many topics and issues. Many more than a usual State of the Union. But at the core of this State of the Union was a very, very specific, very certain, and very precise idea. A theory, if you like. Even a model. That means: a set of relationships made of causes and effects. The world's leaders are waking up today in a panic precisely because Biden's model of how the world works — and what America's place is in it — is the most dramatic sea change to happen to global politics and economics in post-war history.
No, I'm not kidding. We'll discuss, shortly, whether that sea change should be thought of as a good thing, but the first thing Americans need to understand is that Biden just outlined a manifesto that's more or less revolutionary, and again, I'm not kidding. Why do I say that? Especially as someone who was critical of Biden?
The model of the world, and America's place in it, that was at the core of that State of the Union went like this. America was once a place of broadly shared prosperity, which created a thing called "the middle class." But as jobs went offshore, the middle class began to collapse. Even going that far would be a big change for American politics — in which both sides have long supported the ideas of "globalization" and "offshoring," hell, invented them both together. It was under Reagan that this set of ideas began — and under Clinton that they accelerated out of control. Both sides.
But Biden went further than challenging this old orthodoxy, which both sides created — offshore, globalize, and America will be just fine. Much further. He recognized that the gains of this model of organizing the global economy — which is what America still does — flowed mostly to the rich, which is how they became super and then ultra rich. And he went even further than that — making an absolutely critical link, that no American President, let alone politician, really, except maybe Bernie and Liz, have made before. That hollowing out of the American middle led to a loss, as he said, of pride.
Once-thriving cities and towns became shadows of what they used to be.
And along the way, something else was lost.
Pride. That sense of self-worth.
Now. He meant that in a certain American way. But we can also put it in a much more formal one. A loss of confidence. Optimism. Trust in institutions. In each other. Among social groups. A sense of fatalism. Despair. The growing sentiment that life would never get better. Pride.
Biden did something incredibly important. I don't use the word "incredibly" lightly. He made the link between politics — one model of organizing the global economy, in which America's middle class was effectively sacrificed to cheap labour — and economics — that led to widespread stagnation, and a fall in living standards — and society. As a result of this political ideology, the economy went south, and that led society itself to grow impoverished, in a deep way. In terms of social bonds, ties, trust, optimism, self-belief, self-confidence, self-efficacy. But how is self-governance possible without all those?
No American President has made this set of links. Not since Hoover or maybe Eisenhower. No American President has linked politics, economics, and society. Instead, in the post-war era, most Presidents have assumed that American society — and I mean that in a deep sense, as in, how society's doing, its sense of optimism, confidence, self-belief, social bonds, ties — is a thing divorced from politics and economics. That it'll weather any set of blows aimed at it.
But that's not true. What do we know? What's the single biggest lesson of 20th century social thought? Sudden slides into impoverishment produces waves of fascism, precisely because societies lose their "pride," their confidence, optimism, self-belief, and thus become easy prey for demagogues, who blame a people's woes on scapegoats. That's the story of the Nazis turning Weimar Germany into a killing machine — but it's also the story of America from about 2010 or so, its own authoritarian-fascist wave surging, and still right there, battering away at the doors of democracy.
Biden did something radical. Revolutionary, even. There are many on the left who style themselves as radical and revolutionaries — you know the type — and they'll object to my point. But that doesn't make them any less true. Being radical in this age isn't just about, I don't know, having a poster of Che in your bedroom and still hoping for the revolution. It's about actually challenging failed systems.
My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades, too many people have been left behind or treated like they're invisible.
Maybe that's you, watching at home.
You remember the jobs that went away. And you wonder whether a path even exists anymore for you and your children to get ahead without moving away.
I get it.
That's why we're building an economy where no one is left behind.
Jobs are coming back, pride is coming back, because of the choices we made in the last two years.
Let me put it more formally. Biden launched a quiet revolution last night. In it, he repudiated the governing ideologies that have led America to the brink of collapse — all of them. He didn't call them out by name, because of course this isn't a grad school seminar. And yet to translate the SOTU in a far more concise way would be to say something like: "Neoliberalism's done. It didn't work. It led to economic stagnation, which led to social degeneration, and that produced MAGA Trumpism. But MAGA Trumpism, of course, doesn't work either — it doesn't solve anything. And neither does the old-school conservatism — nobody should have healthcare!! Insulin!! Everything should be run for maximum profit — that aligned so neatly with 90s era neoliberalism. These ages of American politics are done. They are over. They have failed. We are going to try something new."
For example, too many of you lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, wondering what will happen if your spouse gets cancer, your child gets sick, or if something happens to you.
Will you have the money to pay your medical bills? Will you have to sell the house?
I get it.
…You know, we pay more for prescription drugs than any major country on Earth…Every day, millions need insulin to control their diabetes so they can stay alive. Insulin has been around for 100 years. It costs drug companies just $10 a vial to make.
But, Big Pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars — and making record profits.
Let me say that again, so that it's really, really clear. In that SOTU, Biden very, very firmly repudiated, rejected, even scorned America's governing ideologies for the last five decades or more. All of them. From neoliberalism to drown-government-in-a-bathtub-conservatism to MAGA Trumpism, their hateful bastard offspring. All of them.
Whether you like it or not, that's radical. And it's revolutionary, too. It's not revolutionary in, say, the French sense — France just nationalized its main energy supplier, because, well, hello, climate change. Possible in France — not in America. For America, though? This was, make no mistake, revolutionary, incendiary stuff.
If you don't get why, think about how…the entire city of…Washington DC….feels this morning. It's waking up, too, in bleary, confused, panic. The lobbyists are baffled. The pundits are bewildered. Did America's President just say…all our ideologies for the last…five decades…haven't worked? Where does that…gulp…leave us? You can see why all these folks — from lobbyists to media — hate Biden so much.
As a simple example, American media hates Biden so much it spends more time telling him not to run again than covering any of the above. That's not its job: a media isn't there to tell a President not to run, except in cases of abuse of power. It's covering reality. But America's media hates Biden because he is doing the one thing they can't abide, hate, loathe, despise, think of as contemptuous.
He's becoming a radical. And that leaves them in the lurch, because, well, then, instead of dumb horse-race style coverage, from which they earn cushy sinecures, they might actually have to do the hard work of investigating reality, and asking tough questions, like: is Biden right? Is that why the entire world is now listening to him? Why Europe's scrambling to copy him? Why nations like France's and Germany's leaders are inspired by him?
Americans don't hear those stories, and so they don't see Biden for what he is. American media needs to create characters — cliched, derivative ones — to sell their hackneyed, trite narratives. The character they've tried to create for Biden is "the doddering old man." Just as for Steve Bannon, LOL, it was "the great intellectual" — remember that? Or for Trump, it was "the firebrand" — thus legitimizing and normalizing fascism. But Biden isn't a doddering old man. Ask Macron. Ask Trudeau. They will tell you that he is becoming the most radical American President in the post-war era. Otherwise — well, why would they be intimidated, trying to copy his moves?
What is that quiet revolution? For the first time, Biden actually began to describe it in concrete terms. I've discussed it quite a bit, but this was the first time Biden himself has connected all the dots. What made America different before the five decades of ideological failure? Well, it used to make stuff. Stuff the world admired, wanted, needed. Made in America used to be words that meant something. That's not just a nostrum.
In those days, America was a net exporter. And as a net exporter, it was a much, much healthier economy and society both. It had a middle class that was robust and vibrant, because there were plenty of stable jobs. Inequality was far lower, because the rich weren't basically arbitraging cheap Chinese labour. And all that meant that, despite America's problems, society was far more bound together, healthier, more confident. In his words, there was more "pride."
Biden laid out a manifesto for a revolution. Now let me describe it in detail. America's to become a net exporter again. Of stuff the world needs.
Where is it written that America can't lead the world in manufacturing again?
For too many decades, we imported products and exported jobs.
Now, thanks to all we've done, we're exporting American products and creating American jobs.
As that happens, three effects unfold. Number one, the middle class roars back to life, because now there are stable jobs at a social scale once again, not just rampant inequality and downward mobility. Two, that puts enough back in the public purse to begin funding advanced public goods. Biden didn't quite fully say this part out loud, but he clearly understands it, thinks it — that if you can get the economy back to where it was way back then, during America's post-war Golden Years, then you can offer Americans European-level public goods, like childcare and healthcare and so forth.
Three, all of that begins to rewrite the social contract. An America like that, with a robust middle class, a stronger public purse, less inequality — it's also one that doesn't have to simply accede to predatory exploitation for things like insulin, right down to connectivity, because it's powerless, the ultra rich holding all the money and power. Now, people have self-confidence, belief, "pride" again. Because they have real power again. Economic power, social stability, financial security, social ties and bonds, a sense of community.
That is seriously radical. I'm sorry if that offends some people, because, certainly, it will. But it needs to be said. We have never heard an American President speak this way. Not even JFK, for all his many historic accomplishments, made these links — stagnation, a loss of confidence, the erosion of democracy, the degeneration of society. Biden's revolution is about restoring the fortunes of the average American again — in serious ways, not just superficial ones. Giving them fundamental things that democracy relies on. It's a manifesto about security, stability, and prosperity for the average person.
Why is that radical? Well, who's preached anything like that — let alone begun to do it? Every American President for the last fifty years or so, with the exception of Carter, has basically told Americans that their problems are….their fault. They don't work hard enough, they don't save enough, they're not thrifty enough, resourceful enough, imaginative enough. Self-reliance and rugged individualism are the mantras that unite everyone Clinton to Bush to Obama. Hey — stand on your own two feet. (If you don't believe me, skim some of these old SOTU's from Bush, Clinton, and Obama and see the difference for yourself.)
Biden explicitly rejected that philosophy of individualism, aggression, and atomization. Explicitly. Instead, he proposed a philosophy of cooperation, togetherness, and interdependence. Our fortunes rise together, he said — if we get back to making stuff again, then we'll have pride again, confidence, self-belief, and with that comes a stronger society, which can do the hard work of democracy better, too. It's the precise opposite of the overtly mean every-person-for-themselves, the strong survive and the weak perish Presidential philosophies of the last several decades.
I ran for President to fundamentally change things, to make sure the economy works for everyone so we can all feel pride in what we do.
To build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well.
Now. That doesn't mean any of this will happen overnight. It won't, and that's the danger and the problem. Biden's revolution faces three challenges. One we've covered — the media won't cover it, choosing to portray him as the character of the "doddering old man" — and so Americans are more than a little confused by it. Who is Biden — this bold guy proposing all this new stuff, getting stuff done — or the guy the media says is Uncle Goofy?
The second challenge is that all the above takes time, and Americans are impatient. How long will Biden's revolution take — to deliver real-world improvements Americans can feel, point at and say, hey, this happened to me? Five to ten years. A long time. But Americans need to understand that turning around a society as decrepit and broken and America isn't going to happen overnight. They need to be grown ups now, and understand that patience is key if they want a better country, that just writing all this off because it's not all happening at immediate-gratification speed is foolish.
Challenge three, and you could see it on flagrant, vulgar display last night is…the GOP. They jeered, sneered, heckled, interrupted. Fanatics like Marjorie Taylor Greene put on a gross show. Then came the bizarre official response, which was about…LOL… "wokeness," the far right's favorite new scare tactic. There's a point there, which is that the GOP doesn't want any of Biden's revolution to happen. Any of it. Precisely because to them, a frightened, desperate, anxious America is a divided one, which is easier to control, prey on, and profit from. An America whose confidence and optimism and "pride" is restored? That's the last thing the GOP wants — and the thing it fears most, because then, well, it's obsolete. So the GOP will do everything it can to stall, flame out, crash and burn Biden's revolution before it can really happen.
I wanted to put all this in perspective for you, because today, I didn't read much good commentary about Biden's SOTU. The fact is — and you can take this to the bank — everyone from Emanuel Macron to Justin Trudeau to Antonio Guterrres is studying it, repeating it in their minds. Because it was and is an historic moment for America.
An American President repudiated the direction the nation's governing ideologies — on both sides — have taken it for an historical era. And set forth a manifesto for a quiet revolution, that cuts through from politics to economics to society. Serious stuff. Era-defining visions. Global transformations. Yes, Biden's still no Bernie or Liz. But in his own way? He's becoming something I think even he never expected. Radical. In the sense of fundamental transformations to the Big Stuff — economies, social contracts, how a nation works, what America's place in the world is.
Doddering old man? Wrong. Biden's stepping up the plate. The question now? It's whether Americans will be wise enough to hand him the ball, so he can score a touchdown.
Umair
February 2023
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