The annual State of the Union address, for an American president and his advisers, is a matter of polishing. Each theme, each sentence is weighed for weeks, before being pronounced before the elected members of Congress. For his first, Joe Biden intended to put his action in perspective, insist on the economic progress of his start to the presidency and draw a proactive path in this year marked by the mid-term elections in November. It’s about overcoming the epidemic, galloping inflation, internal divisions, while the Democrat’s popularity is hovering dangerously around 40% in the polls. All this was well discussed on Tuesday 1is March, in a crowded Capitol. But the American president, very offensive and resolute, spoke first about Ukraine.
“When the history of this era is written, Putin’s war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger”underlined Joe Biden, estimating that “democracies rise to the occasion”, in the fight against autocracies. The US President spoke of the “bad calculations” of Vladimir Putin, “isolated from the world more than ever” after having “met the wall of strength” what is the Ukrainian people. “We countered Russia’s lies with the truth. And now that [Poutine] acted, the free world holds him responsible. »
This formula of “free world”, forged at the time of the Cold War, says the age of its author, or else his desire to sum up in an elementary way the common front against Moscow. Joe Biden hardly mentioned China, ignored the withdrawal from Afghanistan, barely mentioned the possible cost of the war in Ukraine for American consumers. Instead of dramatizing, he wanted to reassure. Instead of preparing Americans for pessimistic scenarios, he pretended that everything had been anticipated. Instead of promising sweat and tears, he drew bright tomorrows.
Reassure the American public
President of economic warfare, refusing to directly involve his army in a new external conflict, Joe Biden seeks both to illustrate his iron determination against Moscow and to reassure the American public. Elected to overcome internal fractures, eager to radically reorient his country towards competition with China, here is Joe Biden absorbed by a conflict that emerged from remote ages, in the middle of the European continent. With, opposite, a political actor, Vladimir Putin, whose rationality and balance are no longer taken for granted. “Through our history, we have learned the following lesson: when dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos.declared Joe Biden. They continue to advance. And the costs and threats to America and the world continue to grow. »
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