In good times or bad, American presidents come to Congress with a diagnosis that hardly differs over the decades. In their State of the Union speeches, they declare “the state of our union is strong” or words very much like it.
President Joe Biden’s fellow Americans, though, have other ideas about the state they’re in and little hope his State of the Union address Tuesday night can turn anything around.
America’s strength is being sharply tested from within — and now from afar — as fate, overnight, made Biden a wartime president in someone else’s conflict, leading the West’s response to a Russian invasion of Ukraine that makes all the other problems worse.
The state of the union is disunity and division. It’s a state of exhaustion from the pandemic. It’s about feeling gouged at the grocery store and gas pump. It’s so low that some Americans, including prominent ones, are exalting Russian President Vladimir Putin in his attack on a democracy.
