The Sad State of the State of the Union

All screenshots via last night's State of the Union Address, which can be watched and read here.

The first modern State of the Union Address was delivered on April 8, 1913 by Woodrow Wilson. It caused a stir at the time, because in previous years the president had just submitted what were basically annual memos on how things were going to Congress. Of course, back then presidents had far fewer ways to get their messages out to the people. The first presidential radio address, delivered by Calvin Coolidge, was a decade away; when Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address, it was circulated in newspaper accounts days after the fact. For much of American history it was impossible for the entire country to hear the president speak at one time, then it was rare, now it’s completely unremarkable. Any time Barack Obama wants to tell the country something, he can call a press conference, set up a livestream, or just send a tweet to his 41 million followers: “Hey everyone, it’s the President, on Twitter. I think cheese is gross and we should get rid of it. Who’s with me? #CheeseBan #YesWeCan”

All of Obama’s political opponents and allies have the same opportunities to reach the public with their arguments, which is nice and democratic but also makes for an ugly, overcrowded media landscape. It’s pretty exhausting under normal circumstances to listen to a never-ending dialogue of press releases, Sunday show appearances, speeches in Congress, and quotes and leaks fed to reporters, and the buildup to the 2014 State of the Union Address was just an intensification of that. Bits and pieces of the speech were making the online rounds yesterday and Republicans were denouncing what they already knew were going to be Obama’s proposals. It was possible to read opinion pieces about how the president wouldn’t be able to achieve the goals outlined in his speech before the speech even happened.

The state of corn farmers continues to be strong.

In the world of the constant campaign, the State of the Union is just a blip, an applause-filled ritual we have to go through. Both houses of Congress gather, there’s this whole process where people walk down the aisle and shake endless hands, there’s chatter about whether the Supreme Court justices are attending (this year, as they did last year, the conservative justices skipped it) and who the ordinary people brought to the speech by politicians are (this year’s guest list included a lot of unemployed people, business owners unhappy about Obamacare, and the Duck Dynasty guy). Then there’s a bit in the beginning where the president tells everyone how great everything is—hardly anyone has started this speech on a bad note, though Gerald Ford in 1975 is a notable exception. Even Herbert Hoover’s 1931 report on the State of the Union, delivered to Congress as a written document in the midst of the Great Depression, tried to put a positive spin on the economic decline:

“We find fundamental national gains even amid depression. In meeting the problems of this difficult period, we have witnessed a remarkable development of the sense of cooperation in the community. For the first time in the history of our major economic depressions there has been a notable absence of public disorders and industrial conflict.”

Obama busting out the charts to demonstrate how bad income inequality has gotten.

Obama’s optimistic opening section was all about how great and awesome ordinary American workers and entrepreneurs were, after which he segued into the meat of the State of the Union, which is basically a very long conference call during which only one person talks. There was even what amounted to a PowerPoint presentation, in the form of a series of photos and charts demonstrating what Obama was talking about. (The administration did the same thing last year.)

This “enhanced experience” was, like the rest of the White House’s social media initiatives surrounding the speech, pretty much just window dressing. If you’re a real big West Wing fan, you might have gotten a big kick out of the “Big Block of Cheese Day” promo video that referenced the much-beloved Aaron Sorkin show in announcing that White House staffers will be answering questions from “everyday Americans” on social media on Wednesday. Everyone else is likely rolling their eyes at another hashtag to ignore or mock.

What about the actual content of the nearly 7,000-word speech? Obama mentioned foreign policy—talks with Iran about its nuclear program will continue, he’s “imposed prudent limits on the use of drones,” whatever that means—but most of the speech was about domestic issues. Obama announced a number of initiatives he is launching via executive order, most notably government-backed “myRA” accounts that supposedly will encourage Americans to set aside money for retirement (though they’ll have to have money to set aside first). Other things Obama said he’d do—and didn’t need Congress’s input on—included raising the minimum wage for the employees of federal contractors and calling meetings with business leaders and other muckety-mucks to talk about unemployment, universal preschool, and policies to help working families.

If those plans seem unimportant or vague, that’s because there’s hardly anything Obama can do on his own. The US is governed by laws passed by Congress, and thanks to Congressional dysfunction, that means the government is structurally inclined toward inaction. To extend unemployment benefits, reform immigration laws, raise the minimum wage, and deal with climate change, Obama has to rely on the House and the Senate.

During his speech, Obama highlighted the story of this pizza shop, which had recently raised its workers' wages.

To get anything done, Obama needs 60 senators and a majority of the House on his side, and that’s proven nearly impossible to achieve during his five years in office. He can’t convince Republicans or their voters that Obamacare is a good idea, and the GOP hasn’t been especially interested in helping him achieve any other policy goals, both because they disagree with his policies and because they’re committed to making him look like a failure.

Yesterday Republican congressmen were already throwing cold water on the idea of raising the nationwide minimum wage, and some of Obama’s other stated goals seem dead on arrival. He said he wanted to close Guantanamo Bay—but in 2008 he promised to shut that prison down during his first year in office. He claimed he would “keep trying, with or without Congress” to reduce gun violence—but efforts on the federal level to pass gun-control bills have stalled (though it’s a different story at the state level). He pledged to “reform our surveillance programs because the vital work of our intelligence community depends on public confidence, here and abroad, that privacy of ordinary people is not being violated”—but no one is holding their breath for significant NSA reforms. Some of the people Obama will have to work with on this stuff used the announcement of his executive orders to call him a petty tyrant. 2014 is off to a great start.

The one big-ticket item on Obama’s list that has a shot of becoming law is immigration reform—a bipartisan bill got through the Senate, and now it’s up to the House to pass its own bill. That means that a few Tea Party lawmakers will have to be cajoled and convinced to give undocumented immigrants some kind of path to legal status, which is likely to be a long, arduous process conducted mainly behind closed doors. No amount of speeches, no matter how eloquent or plugged in to social media, is likely going to speed that up.

@HCheadle