“Like a Punch in the Face”: Biden Thrills the Media with an Attack on his Political Foes in the State of the Union

Below is my column in the New York Post on the State of the Union and how it played to the politics of division. It was about disunion and the need to demonize those with whom we disagree. The speech thrilled many in the media, but it captured how much we have lost in the traditions of this event from civility to unity.

Here is the column:

President Biden gave what could be his final State of the Union address Thursday.

While many presidents have used such moments to focus on the “union” of all Americans in our shared values and interests, Biden spoke to our disunion and seemed, again, to push the nation further apart.

Much of the rhetoric was familiar, if delivered as in a higher volume.

Biden raised the same demons he’s raised before, as he painted his opponents as threatening democracy itself.

As with the speech in Philadelphia and Valley Forge, Biden selected a backdrop of unity to highlight and play on our divisions. And many in the media were thrilled by the display.

The president attacked Trump and the Supreme Court, and compared political opponents to those presenting the same threat as Hitler in World War II.

After the speech, MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace gushed that it “was like a punch in the face to every Republican in the room.”

After repeating again that it “was a punch in the nose,” she added, “everybody knows this is a great speech.”

I beg to differ.

It was certainly a powerful delivery for Biden, but it was a rather poor State of the Union speech because there was little unifying in it.

Biden attacked his political opponents over a dozen times and even seemed to lash out at the Supreme Court justices sitting before him.

He returned to the themes of his infamous Philadelphia speech with the portrayal of his opponents (including millions of Americans) as representing an existential threat to the nation, like the Nazis or the Confederacy.

The hellish red backdrop was gone but in some ways it was more chilling precisely because this was a different setting.

This was supposed to be the State of the Union, where a president lays out what he views as the national interest, not just his political interests.

There is a difference.

Some Republicans showed the same lack of appreciation for this moment in heckling and shouting at the president.

I have written that such conduct should not be tolerated at the SOTU.

We’ve forgotten civility

While a guest was removed from the chamber and arrested for yelling at the president, some members continued to treat the SOTU like a cathartic primal-scream session.

The media also showed the ecstatic response to the rage and recriminations.

They praised Biden’s speech while largely ignoring the over-the-top partisanship and dubious factual claims.

What was lost is what we once had in these moments.

I can remember as a young page standing in awe of this chamber and its occupants.

Presidents and the members were every bit as partisan and bitterly divided.

However, at the SOTU they could still transcend the politics.

It was a moment that reminded the nation that we are still capable of reaching these moments of civility and decorum.

In some ways, the SOTU may have died when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up the address of former President Donald Trump.

Her drop-the-mic moment will have a lasting impact on the House.

While many in the media celebrated her lack of decorum and respect, she tore up something far more important than a speech.

She shredded decades of tradition of civility and any remaining residue of restraint in our politics.

Now media figures like Wallace are praising a president for giving a speech that is “a punch in the face to every Republican in the room . . . a punch in the nose . . . Everybody knows this is the message going into the next eight months, but the polls will soon reflect that, in this will be a real fight.”

It does not matter that Wallace has spent the last three years joining figures like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) in condemning “Donald Trump’s speech inciting the crowd to go ‘fight like hell, or you won’t have a country anymore.’ ”

I condemned that speech on Jan. 6 when it was still being given.

However, for some, the rhetoric of division appears thrilling rather than threatening when delivered by the right party.

Now it is a matter of pride to see a president use the same rhetoric to “punch Republicans in the nose” and call on citizens to fight against tens of millions supporting his opponent.

I find no sense of joy or comfort in Biden’s State of the Union.

It remains the same politics of division.

It is not that Biden did not hear the call of history to unify a nation.

He just chose to ignore it.

Instead, the public was given scripted rage and choreographed demonstrations.

The question is what the public will now demand.

We can seek candidates who reach for something greater than we are at this moment . . . Or we can all just punch each other in the nose until the whole country is left bloody and broken.

Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School. 

224 thoughts on ““Like a Punch in the Face”: Biden Thrills the Media with an Attack on his Political Foes in the State of the Union”

    1. The Democrats will do Moochhell!

      Please don’t tell anyone; it’s going to be a surprise.

      But she has a problem.

      She will be fronting for a de facto third term of the eminently ineligible son of a foreign citizen, Barack Hussein “Barry ‘I-Have-A-Statue-In-Jakarta’ Soetoro” Obama.

      Third presidential terms are unconstitutional.
      __________________________________________________

      “What fresh hell can this be?”

      – Dorothy Parker

      1. 4th term of Obama. There is NO WAY Joe is coherent enough to continue Obama’s Fundamental Transformation.

  1. “The question is what the public will now demand.”

    “We can seek candidates who reach for something greater than we are at this moment . . . Or we can all just punch each other in the nose until the whole country is left bloody and broken.”

    – Professor Turley
    _____________________

    Indeed, no nation could ever “reach for something greater” than the freedom, free enterprise, and free markets of the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the American Founders and Framers, but “Crazy Abe” Lincoln extirpated those documents of fundamental law, throwing the baby out with the bathwater and throwing the Constitution out with reprehensible slavery, which must have been abrogated licitly and legislatively.  Lincoln promoted anti-free market, pro-labor Marxism and its incremental implementation in America.  Lincoln failed to grasp the existential imperative of working within the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Lincoln failed to grasp that there was never a cause greater than the endeavor to save the Republic, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
    ________________

    “These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.”

    – Abraham Lincoln, from his first speech as an Illinois state legislator, 1837

  2. “In some ways, the SOTU may have died when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up the address of former President Donald Trump.”

    – Professor Turley
    ____________________

    In some ways, America may have died when it lost its resolve to promote the good of the Constitution and preserve the restricted-vote republic, preferring to promote abortion, female masculinization, a fertility rate “death spiral, hysteria, incoherence, covetousness, and the rapacious avarice of the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” aka one-man, one-vote “democracy.”

  3. “More mean-spirited Dims taking marching orders from The Senile-in-Chief and his over-the-top rant last night that masqueraded as a State of the Union speech. Compare Trump to Hitler in sentence one and then go straight downhill from there. Biden is a demon or in league with them and boy it shows. Buckle up folks. It’s gonna be a wild ride in 2024 as we battle the demon horde, but – spolier alert – we win because unless they make you as old, bitter and miserable as they are, you Win!”
    *************************
    Here’s my comment from yesterday. Nothing has changed except I believe it more. The Dims are a death cult. Any reader of the classics knows this conflict we have isn’t difference over policy; it’s over basic Judeo-Christian right and wrong.

    Here’s what animates Biden into some form of temporary sanity as it has animated the damned for centuries:

    “For pride and avarice and envy are the three fierce sparks that set all hearts ablaze.”

    And then the warning:

    “These dwell among the blackest souls, loaded down deep by sins of differing types. If you sink far enough, you’ll see them all. … “The wish to hear such baseness is degrading.”

    ~Dante Alighieri, Inferno

    1. Mespo, as we discussed yesterday, I do believe the corpse that goes by the name Joe Biden is animated by demonic forces, which we know are dedicated to hate, death, and destruction. It came out of the corpse’s mouth for all to hear, and it was telling that the corpse refuses to say God Bless America in line with our national tradition. That is very purposeful and intentionally symbolic.

      Beyond that it’s disappointing that he and the Dems are actively destroying what I have now worked for for 45 years: my hopes of having a retirement (by collapsing our currency). At this juncture I believe I will have to work past 75 and then it’s unclear if I will even then have enough for a reasonable retirement. All so that an entire generation of men can be slaughtered, oligarchs can but a bigger yacht, and the Biden money laundering operation can keep making him and his cronies richer.

      1. True in all respects. Stay strong. I beleive in divine redemption and divine justice. If he won’t do the former, Biden will face the latter.

  4. As in 2020 Democrats and Biden are trying to control the narative in the election.

    What matters to voters ?

    Idiotic Claims that Trump in a 2nd Term will be Hitler – when in his first term has was actually quite moderate.
    He lowered taxes, reduced regulation reduced some federal spending. Reduced US involvement in pointless foreign conflicts.
    Increased energy independence, secured the border, negotiated the largest mideast peace deal ever and the only one since Carter.

    Many of his policies infuriated the far left. Many infuriated the “deep state” which remains committed to destroying him.
    But all of them are supported by super majorities of Americans.

    Trump was cursed by Covid, and he was politically outmaneuvered resulting in democrats more than reversing decades of election integrity laws.
    While the lawfare constitutes election fraud and should have been reigned in by the courts. Pandemics like covid are external and can happen to any politician. Covid was not Trump’s fault, he handled it badly – though not nearly as bad as Biden, but there is no good way to deal with it.
    Democrats will always have an advantage in a crisis – because it takes people quite sometime to grasp that nearly always the best response to a crisis is to remain calm and determine what you can do something about and the vast majority of things you can’t/

    Unfortunately people beg for action in a crisis – any action no matter how useless.

    Regardless, that is a fact of life and republicans have to figure out how to win in the world as it is,

    If we were governed in the factually optimal manner – the libertarian party would thoroughly dominate.
    We are not – humans especially in the short run act emotionally more often than logically.
    Which is why Democrats exist as a political power.

    These are facts that all politicians including Trump must deal with.

    The election lawfare, the election rigging through government censorship, are all also facts – and those are not inevitable or legitimate.

    Nor is the actual election fraud.

    But these are not mostly issues in 2024.

    Biden will not get the same hammering that Trump got for Covid – despite handling it worse.
    But the Covid issue is gone – and to the extent it is not – democrats botched it.

    Biden strives to make the economic impact of Covid a campaign issue – but people are not stupid.
    People know that the economic collapse in response to Covid was not Trump’s fault – though the rapid recovery was.
    They also know that to the extent Biden gets to “blame Trump” – that would be for laying the foundations for a strong recovery that Biden blew.
    Regardless Covid is not a positive issue for democrats,
    Nor is the economy – people are NOT that stupid.

    The truth about J6 is not likely to be known to most people – maybe ever.
    But it is just not the massive issue for most people it is for the far left.
    And it weakens with each passing month.
    Unfortunately people are unlikely to know the truth – but the narative is still dying – despite Biden’s efforts to breth new life into it.
    The J6 narative and the nonsense of some ascendant fascist right is FAILING.

    What is not going away is that people can compare the Trump presidency to that of Biden.
    And Biden comes up far short.

    People care about the economy
    They care about the rule of law – but even more so they care about patience, calmness and steady leadership.

    While the Trump presidency was a verbal war zone – the reality is that his actual presidency was calm and peaceful – outside the media and the war of words.

    Biden promissed to end that – instead. The war of words is as bad as ever – and that is a huge fail by democrats.
    But more importantly we have real chaos in the economy, in foreign affairs, at the border – and these are inarguably democrats fault.

    And the lawfare – if anything has moved the needle in the wrong direction.

    Worse still for democrats – there are warning signs of serious downballot problems.

    Steve Garvey is unlikely to beat Adam Schiff – unfortunately. But the primary already shows strong republican engagement in 2024 down ballot.
    And the Schiff Garvey race will bring more CA republicans to the polls.
    It is likely the GOP will pick up seats in CA. Nor is CA the only place where GOP pickups apear likely.

    Frankly the polls are damning for democats – and Trump is underpeforming the polls.
    GOP gains among minorities – which have ALWAYS been inevitable. predict a much bigger GOP victory that the national polls are showing.

    It is likely that Trump will underperform GOP gains among minorities – but not be so much as to cot republicans the race.

    The tide is running out for democrats.

    And all the lawfare and angry shouting in the world is not changing that.

    1. Biden can’t let the election be a referendum on him – he and his policies are too unpopular. They have to make the election a choice. So they want to define Trump as a Hitler wannabe monster.

      It only has to work on a fairly small percentage of independent/swing voters to work.

      ==========

      They tried abusing the justice system with lawfare but that looks like a failed strategy. With each new indictment Trump got stronger so everybody sees through it.

      But since Trump supporters are helping pay for the lawfare with their taxes, it didn’t cost much money to try it. Sure, they destroyed confidence in the system. But they don’t care. They have an election to win. No cost is too high.

  5. “Some Republicans showed the same lack of appreciation for this moment in heckling and shouting at the president.”

    – Professor Turley
    _____________________

    Seriously?

    The American Revolutionaries espoused and prosecuted strategies and tactics significantly more solemn and profound than “heckling and shouting” at incorrigible, direct, and mortal enemies, for good and moral reason, and admonished countrymen through the ages to follow in their quest for natural and God-given freedom. 

    To wit,

    “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

    – Declaration of Independence, 1776

  6. “Biden attacked his political opponents over a dozen times and even seemed to lash out at the Supreme Court justices sitting before him.”

    – Professor Turley 
    _____________________

    Biden did not lash out at the Supreme Court Justices; Biden lashed out at the Constitution.  The Communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) In America (CIA) despise the Constitution as anathema.  The Constitution reserves legislation on abortion to the States and placing candidates on ballots to Congress.  Biden replicated the absurdity of Lincoln, who lashed out at the Constitution with reference to secession, subscribing to the proposition, “Because secession is not prohibited, secession is prohibited,” and proceeded, from that inflection point, with his fellow traveler, Karl Marx, to destroy American freedom and commence the incremental implementation of the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” and principles of communism that America is subjugated by today.  

  7. “Below is my column in the New York Post …”

    Didn’t read. NY Post is a bikini-tabloid TRASH mag that bans readers SOLELY based on a list provided to them by the Fox “News” Garbage site. If you get shadow-banned at Garbage Fox, you get shadow-banned at the Garbage Post.

    Working for Fox and the NY Posts disproves Turley’s “frree-speech” BS as pure empty rhetoric.

    1. I though that left wing nuts thoroughly supported banning and shadow banning ?

      Fox is not fair and balanced but it has many democrat hosts – far from a majority, but still they get time to present their arguments.,
      Further guests on Fox are frequently from the left.

      Fox viewers do not get equal time, but they do get all sides.
      That is far less true of the MSM.

      NY Post is not NYT or WaPo – but NYT and WaPo are no longer NYT and WaPo.
      They have been ridiculously wrong on nearly every political story of the past 16 years.
      While NY Post has been right.

      It takes a century of that to build the reputation that NYT and WaPo had. It takes a month to wipe it out.

      1. I happen to be a Trump supporter, you long-winded lying dimwit, and my comment said ZERO about left or right. That’s YOUR fallacy, not mine.
        Get help. Mental illness is a treatable disease.

  8. Trump will be a dictator? Biden’s claims are ridiculous. Trump cut government regulations for business, that was a one of the key accomplishments of his administration. He wanted to lessen the power of government over business. He cut corporate taxes to, which led to a situation where more people got jobs, and bonuses where they worked, while the federal government – which waste money like there is no tomorrow – had less money to blow stupidly (yay).Trump also cut taxes for regular taxpayers, so the government had less money to spend – less money to waste – and citizens got to keep more of their earnings. How about Trump’s draconian DEI hiring? His hiring policies have been a no-straight-white-males- need- apply thing from day one of his administration. Biden has been steering all of the jobs he controls to favored Democratic blocks of voters, that type of hiring violates basic civil rights laws and runs counter to basic civil service traditions. In the past Democrats in the White House have had quotas – that was tolerable to me, they would give 13% of federal jobs to African Americans (nothing wrong with this at all, 13% of the country is African American), or 50% of the jobs to women, but Biden has actually done away with the quota system, an instead set up federal hiring policies where ALL jobs go to women and minorities. Mostly white males cannot get jobs in his administration, except for a few “tokens”. I believe in fair hiring policies – most Americans do – Biden from the outset of his administration has been steering jobs to friendly voting blocs. This is an affront to longstanding civil rights rules and procedures, he has set up a “spoils “system. Despite this, Biden claims Trump will be a dictator! Far more evidence Biden is a dictator. He has opened the borders, something most Americans strongly oppose (he’s done this during a period where we have critical shortages of housing), he tried to forgive student loans – illegally. Biden is the dictator type, not Trump – it’s Biden and his Democratic pals that want to take away our freedoms; no more cars that run on gas, no more gas burning stoves, efforts to take away guns for law abiding citizens, forcing employers to pay health care costs of part time workers (which led to huge hikes in premiums for small business employers) etc. etc. . The Democrats – today – seek to use the administrative state to “transfer” the hard earn dollars of hard working people to voting blocs that don’t work, are not interested in working, voting blocs that want free everything, freed food, free health care, free colleges etc. etc.. Voters need to push back, get rid of Joe Biden, he is a dictator stumblebum – ready for a rest home.

  9. Dear Prof Turley,

    And you thought Trump was the most divisive and polarizing president in history.

    Look, here’s the deal: you’ve got to say it LOUD AND PROUD. My ears are still ringing. tHAt’s number one 1!

    Number 2. Joe Biden, the speaker, heckled audience (e.g. the SCOTUS and the Republicans), a lot more than the audience heckled him.

    Tell me again what happens when the speaker heckles the audience?

    *that’s what debates are for .. .

  10. Heckliing during the SOTU should not be condoned.

    But facts matter.

    “Steve Nikoui, father of Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, killed in Afghanistan during the catastrophe of Biden’s disastrous withdrawal, was arrested for heckling Biden during the State of the Union address. ”

    This was not Nancy Pelosi tearing up the state of the union.

    Mr. Nikoui was wrong. but most of us can have sympathy.

    1. I wonder if Bidens indifference to the return of his dead sons remains with his continual watch checking was what triggered him?

  11. Wait, are we talking about Sleepy Joe here?
    Or is this Jacked Up Joe?
    Is he a tottering old man or is he a spry criminal mastermind?
    Is Obama running the show? Or is it Dick Cheney? or the Clintons? Or maybe Hunter (it is a crime family after all);?

    Ahh for the days of civility. Those days went out the door when trump refused to acknowledge the fact (yes, fact) that he lost the election and fomented a coup to stay in office beyond his expiration date. The odds of trump winning the election are pretty close to zero, but I can imagine a future SOTU address where trump invites Orban and Putin to be his guests (masters).

  12. Sadly, both sides have made it clear that this is all out flamethrower war. The GOP had a chance to nominate a solid conservative without the nasty nicknames and high intensity insults, but they chose DJT. As Stephen Stills wrote “Battle lines bein’ drawn, nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong”. Wake me up in November

    1. The GOP had a chance to nominate a solid conservative?? Like Romney or McCain?? We want a fighter not a caver….

  13. He read what he was told to read. He prepared for days and days to read the teleprompter.

    They are panicking in the White House.

    1. Whoever wrote it prepared a bitter and hateful speech. I’ll admit that I also found it to be a bit scary. The left sees no redeeming values in conservatives and apparently think of them as undeserving of having a voice or even existing. They think Trump is literally Hitler or worse. When that is what you think of your political opponents there is nothing you will stop at to prevent them from having a voice in politics and especially in serving as the President of the nation. Nothing at all, including the “final solution”.

      Many people think if Trump would just remove himself from politics and the spotlight that things will return to “normal”. They are wrong. Vilifying any candidate that is not far left IS the new normal and they will do this now to anyone on the right. Remember how they treated their now new best buddy Romney when he ran for President? They have since gotten progressively (no pun intended) worse by several magnitudes. Law-fare works for the left as the “Trump exception” is now applied to all laws and legal precedent. As does violence as there is no repercussions when they do it and any push-back from the right results in them being the ones jailed. It is not going to end well. I’m becoming convinced we are headed to a civil war. A possibility I would have mocked just a few short years ago as a conspiracy theory.

  14. A ranting Fool stood on the podium yelling ‘I AM THE ONE’, all the while displaying his demented mind and views of past, present and future idea’s of Tyranny from on high with his beloved followers clapping in unison. Four more years of this devilish leader and his followers is surely the path to PERDITION.

    God help us ALL!!!!

  15. What I found most disturbing was that three years into his presidency, Joe Biden is still blaming Donald Trump for his woes. Note to the President: You are in charge and the current issues are yours to propose solutions and to resolve.

  16. The hubris and lying of Biden and his “Our Democracy” allies know no bounds. At the beginning of his rant he said he faced a bigger crisis than either FDR or Lincoln. FDR faced Hitler on the world stage, but no domestic enemies. Lincoln faced the daunting mystic insurrection of the confederacy but no foreign enemies. Biden, on the other hand, faces dire threats both foreign and domestic, represented by Putin and Trump. Putin as Hitler and Trump as an insurrectionist are the stories he is peddling, with Biden as the hero President seeking to protect us from both.

    1. Daniel.
      Interesting comment and analysis.
      Two years of fighting, and Russia has not taken the majority of the Ukraine. All the money, supplies, and support we have given to the Ukraine did help. But this war was lost before the first shot was taken.
      Looking at the economics, logistics and manpower, Russia is not going to march on anyone else.
      All of this could of been prevented if the US/West did not squash the tentative peace agreement the Ukraine and Russia had in Istanbul in the spring of 2020.

      Yeah, they keep using the insurrection lie, over and over again.

      Biden is not the hero of anything.

      1. I agree. The war in Ukraine should have never been fought. In the end, Russia will gain much more territory than it would have had through a negotiated accommodation to prevent the war. A commitment to implement Minsk and for Ukraine to stay out of NATO would likely have worked. And the idea of Putin rampaging into Eastern Europe is a fantasy, conjured up to justify the strategy of disabling Russia.

        1. Peace between the two nations would have put an end to Biden’s money laundering operation. That explains why he – and others who benefit financially – want the war to continue.

          Meanwhile America is bankrupted, an entire generation of Ukrainian men (and many Russian men) are slaughtered, the world moves away from the dollar, and the risk of nuclear war grows. There is a force as evil as any the world has seen behind it all.

          1. OldManFromKS,
            Wife and I had a discussion yesterday. If Trump wins, and then goes on to negotiate a peace treaty with the Ukrainans and the Russia troops both cheering for the deal, how would the MSM spin it?
            And would the Democrats try to sabotage it?

            1. Upstate, they will for sure try to sabotage it, including preemptively by cheating in the November election. There’s too much money at stake for them to let it all stop.

          2. The left completely ignores the FACT that the Biden’s were paid by Russian Oligarchs and Russian affiliated Ukrainians to manipulate Ukraine.

            It is Biden and democrats in bed with Russia.

          3. Biden doesn’t benefit — financially or otherwise — from the war in Ukraine. The war exists because Russia invaded Ukraine and refuses to leave. Strange that you don’t call out Russia as “a force as evil as any the world has seen.”

        2. Daniel said: “the idea of Putin rampaging into Eastern Europe is a fantasy, conjured up to justify the strategy of disabling Russia”

          If the BRICS alliance gains a permanent upper hand over the US Empire in world trade and influence, which I would guess has about a 50% probability of coming to pass, the Russian economy may ultimately become strong enough that some of those Eastern European nations could ask for annexation.

          1. Number 6,
            I think the US/West attempt to sanction Russia, and then Putin finding a way to make it work to his advantage was something no one thought of, namely our State Department.
            And it brought about the increase in the BRICS to BRICS+. This is something I think has too much momentum to stop, unless WWIII, which I would not put past the US/West to blunder into, to prevent the BRICS+ from actually creating a parallel banking system.

        3. Daniel said: “the idea of Putin rampaging into Eastern Europe is a fantasy”

          If the BRICS alliance gains a permanent global advantage over the US Empire (my guess is there is a ~50% probability of this; much greater is Biden is reelected), Russia’s economy may ultimately strengthen to the point that some of those Eastern European nations ask Putin (or successor) for much closer relations.

          1. LMAO ANOTHER NUTTER BRAIN BLABBERS.

            On the one hand, we have the insane whack job consummating a raging war run into the eastern block, with Putin riding the bear to victories !

            On the other hand, we have “some nations get closer relations with Russia.”

            In the deranged whacked out mind of the libturd, these are the same things. Congratulations. I think we need YOU to control nations on the euro continent and tell them who they can deal with, after all you rule the world !

        1. NATO has ushered in the longest period without war between European countries in a very long time. I’d say NATO membership is a good thing.

          1. NATO was useful when the Soviet Union existed and posed an actual threat. Those days are over but the bureaucracy and arms dealers benefit from the status quo so they need an excuse to keep NATO going. You have drunk their Kool Aid and are now a tool of theirs.

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