Joe Biden, the 80-year-old President of the United States, ambled through the House gallery at the beginning of his address. Despite his advanced age, he looked as energetic as ever and was ready to engage with the audience. Biden is not known for his formal speaking skills, and his address was a mix of garbled phrases and sentence fragments. Nevertheless, he quickly turned the mood of the evening from painful to entertaining with his humor and wit.
Biden accused some Republicans of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare, drawing audible protests from the crowd. He responded to the accusations with a smile and a challenge, asking anyone who doubted his claims to contact his office for proof. Biden showed that he was able to unify different wings of his party, despite some opinions to the contrary. He introduced the parents of Tyre Nichols, who was killed in a police beating in Memphis, and spoke about his proposals to reduce police violence.
Despite the Republicans’ irritation, Biden maintained a positive and humorous tone throughout the evening. He congratulated the new House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, and joked that he looked forward to working with him, even though he knew that Republicans would have little interest in his proposals to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
The whole evening was a demonstration of the power and influence of the President of the United States, even with low approval ratings. It also showed that standards of decorum are highly fluid and have changed over time. In 2009, Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, interrupted President Obama’s speech to Congress by shouting “You lie.” This incident caused embarrassment, even among Republicans, and Wilson was forced to apologize.