The State of the Disunion

If advance reports are correct, President Biden’s State of the Union address will sound more like a political stump speech than an honest assessment of where the country stands. The man who promised to be a uniter, will likely deliver one of the most divisive speeches of his presidency.

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The White House released a few tidbits from the speech, including a line I haven’t heard in decades. “Whose side are you on?” the president will reportedly say. That line recalls the “Red scare” of the ’50s, which gave rise to the McCarthy era and his view that communists had infiltrated the government and were behind virtually every tree. It was a scare tactic then and it is one now, except then it was invoked by right-wingers. Now it is being used by a liberal president.

The line reeks of desperation. With his polls headed south that include, according to Gallup, a decline in the Democratic Party’s advantage over Republicans in party preferences for Black and Hispanic adults by nearly 20 percent, the president is trying to resurrect political ghosts from the past, hoping voters will be haunted by them today. It will likely reinforce the view, especially among

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