Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert were your embarrassing, xenophobic grandpa at Biden’s State of the Union address
The Trumpists did everything they could to interrupt at only the most inappropriate moments
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Your support makes all the difference.Joe Biden’s State of the Union address was supposed to be more boring than it was. There wasn’t supposed to be a fledgling world war, with members of Congress turning up dressed in blue and yellow to signify solidarity with Ukraine. The standing ovation moments weren’t supposed to include an announcement that America had worked with allies to release 60 million barrels of oil from strategic reserves in an effort to prevent economic disaster. The Ukrainian ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova, wasn’t supposed to be the center of attention; she wasn’t even meant to be present.
Yet in the six preceding days, everything had changed. The first half of Biden’s address — which ran for just over an hour — didn’t mention infrastructure, gun control, voting rights, the opioid crisis or the cost of prescription medication. All of those domestic issues were relegated to the second half. This was a significant decision, because the State of the Union is, after all, supposed to be about the state of the union. The fact that Biden and his speechwriters made the decision to put Ukraine up top — they had reportedly been scrambling to decide how to address the situation for a while, having already written a speech that dealt only in domestic issues — suggests that the president felt he wasn’t just on American TVs tonight, but that he was on the world stage. And while on the world stage, he intended to position the US as a leader rather than a Trump-style isolationist nation.
It was an opportunity for some cosy American rhetoric. Putin “thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over.” The Russian president wants to “shake the very foundations of the free world”. And “when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they keep moving”. There was a shout-out for Zelensky’s earlier speech to the EU. There was an announcement that American airspace would be closed and that Russian oligarchs would suffer: “We will find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their jets!” he promised during one particularly rousing moment.
The idea of Joe Biden confiscating gauche signifiers of wealth and turning them over to the state must have been titillating for Republicans, who are always waiting in the wings to call the extremely middle-of-the-road president a secret commie. Unfortunately, no one among House members of the GOP had thought through their pre-prepared lines and considered whether they might seem a little ineffective after the global situation changed. Even worse, Biden then started talking about how kids were going back to school, masks would no longer be needed in the next phase of the pandemic, and workplaces were opening up. The panic among Congressional Republicans was palpable. Joe was stepping all over their turf.
Of course, one can always rely on the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert to get the GOP back on a bad track. As Biden transitioned into the second half of his speech and spoke about immigration, MTG was heard to yell: “Build the wall!” In a coordinated bit of publicity, the Twitter account for House Republicans tweeted out the same thing a few seconds later.
Boebert’s own worst moment came when Biden was talking about burn pits in war zones. As he began to recount how he suspected his dead son, Beau, may have contracted brain cancer because of the toxic runoffs from those military pits, Boebert shouted across the room that “thirteen died” in Afghanistan. She was hushed by the people around her, with one anonymous voice hissing, “Shame.” It clearly wasn’t the reaction she’d imagined. And it’s worth noting, as others did on Twitter, that her interruption was not badly timed, but closely choreographed: she had been given the speech in advance.
The second half of Biden’s speech was reassuringly familiar, replete with promises about building both literal and metaphorical bridges over the next year. This would be an “infrastructure decade.” Gun makers who help supply terrorists with deadly weapons would be held to account legally like tobacco manufacturers. Insulin would be capped at $35 per month (at this point, Biden gestured toward a little boy called Joshua with type one diabetes, who had been brought along to help make the point.) A woman’s right to choose would be protected, or at least he hoped it would (Trump’s Supreme Court pick and previous writer of anti-choice articles Amy Coney Barrett sat stony-faced in her seat at that moment, and didn’t applaud.)
Half familiar promises about American prosperity and half soaring oratory about the bravery of the Ukrainian people (who, by the way, will receive humanitarian aid but no military backup), this was a vintage American presidential address. At one point, there was even a chant of “U-S-A, U-S-A”. Considering the gravity of the situation in Ukraine, Boebert and Greene’s coordinated yells seemed particularly juvenile. Their decision to turn their backs on Biden’s cabinet as they walked in at the beginning didn’t chime well with the surprising amount of Republicans who stood and applauded as the president wrapped up his speech at the end.
In this context, the Trumpists in the room looked anachronistic, their behavior downright embarrassing. Even self-identifying right-wingers on social media seemed confused and loath to criticize the speech: “WT?? He cares about our border, fund the police, veterans, pharmacy prices?? Is that Trump behind all that makeup??” tweeted one.
Boebert addressed her interruption on Twitter after Biden wrapped up his speech, tweeting: “When Biden said flag draped coffins I couldn’t stay silent. I told him directly he did it. He put 13 in there. Our heroic servicemen and women deserve so much better.” The response was mixed. “It was out of line and embarrassing for Colorado,” replied one constituent. “It wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the place. It was inappropriate, disrespectful and embarrassing. This was not a football game where you yell out your thoughts. Like him or no, he’s the president,” wrote another.
As Biden shook hands with people across the aisle and prepared to leave Congress, one got the impression that even though he flubbed some of his lines tonight (saying “Iranians” instead of “Ukrainians” was a low point), most people in the room came out on his side. It wasn’t a particularly impressive speech, but it was reassuring and it hit the right notes. What we saw from the likes of the hardline far-right Trumpists looked less like a spirited response from an opposition that tells it like it is and more like the dying throes of a cult or the embarrassing collectibles of a xenophobic grandpa.