The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

US president Joe Biden’s momentous State of the Union address last Thursday is stale news now in this age of the 24-hour news cycle and little if any popular memory of what happened even a week ago. Correct?

Maybe it is accurate. Maybe it isn’t. While television commentators and various hired experts pontificated on whether or not Biden showed he is still alert and awake enough to serve another four-year term as the American chief executive, much more important things were happening.

First of all, both in his speech and in the days immediately following when he embarked on a tour of several key “battleground” states, Biden did not hesitate to remind his national and local audiences of the stark choice they face in November.

While his opponent Donald Trump was amusing himself by mocking a stutter that Biden has long acknowledged and assiduously worked to overcome, the US president highlighted several themes that he expects to carry him to victory this Fall.

It looks like the Democrats feel the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the 1974 Roe v Wade decision and remove federal guarantees from a woman’s right to an abortion will continue to be a winner for them in national and state elections across the country.

A large, visible number of female Democratic House members wore white and sat together for Biden’s address, drawing attention to their solidarity behind women’s ‘reproductive rights’ and, they hope, to the broad, galvanising effect the high court’s decision has had on elections since the its June 2022 issuance.

Looking directly at members of the Supreme Court who in their 6-3 decision permitted states to virtually outlaw abortion, Biden pointed a virtual finger at them and warned of the consequences of what he and most Americans see as ideological overreach.

Biden nodded to the white-clad women sitting behind the justices. It was apparent even to television viewers that everyone involved in these non-verbal exchanges understood what was going on. Biden encouraged the justices to “watch” the consequences of their action in the months to come.

While the status of abortion limits, as well as the status of in vitro fertilization, is being adjudicated in the American court system, there seems little doubt that a majority of US voters don’t agree with outlawing abortion.

The Republican who has from the start seen best the potential negative consequences of the abortion decision for his party is of course its nominee for president. Subtlety is ordinarily a virtue neither expected nor demanded of Trump by his supporters. But in this case, he is attempting to appear both reasonable on the issue and zealous on the issue – sometimes in the same speech.

He will likely get away with it, too, because for evangelical Christians and other inspired supporters, Trump will always remain far more attractive than any present or potential alternative candidate. Mike Pence, for example, is a confirmed, long-time Bible-thumping true believer on a whole array of socio-religious issues, and look where he now stands in his party’s hierarchy. He is at best an afterthought, much better recalled as the foil in Trump’s illegitimate attempt to cheat his way into a second term than for his religious fervor.

A second theme Biden hopes will energise the electorate and facilitate his re-election is foreign affairs. In particular, he pounded Trump on his still largely inexplicable fascination with Russian president Vladimir Putin and a motley, miscellaneous collection of other real or wannabe autocrats including the chief executives of Hungary, North Korea and, to a lesser extent, China. (Trump avowedly aims to renew his trade wars with China if he wins, so he can ill afford to cozy up to the Chinese president at this stage of the campaign).

It is a minor irony that the autocrats overseas who mostly closely align with Trump’s base of support are probably the theocrats running things in Iran, inasmuch as many religious zealots in the US are unabashed about their desire to merge church (theirs) and state to the extent possible within the limits of an American constitution that goes to considerable lengths to enforce a sturdy distinction between those very institutions of church and state.

But Iran’s leadership is not Christian. It is Muslim. So there’s no path to any kind of religious, political or any other kind of ideological alliance there.

Elsewhere abroad, most Americans appear to favour a stout effort to continue assisting Ukraine to expel its Russian invaders and restore some semblance of peace favourable to US and Western European interests in Eastern Europe. Interestingly, Sweden has now finally joined NATO, reinforcing the practical edge of today’s Iron Curtain to the eastern frontiers of Norway, Finland, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Romania. All are NATO members.

While Russian leaders in the Kremlin should not feel that they are encircled by foes on all aides as they had previously done in the last century, they nevertheless confront a Western alliance more united against their expansionist ambitions than at any time in the past 80 years.

Thus, in addition to hammering home Trump’s basic incivility, these are likely to be the main themes of Biden’s campaign: Support for women’s reproductive rights and resistance to autocracy overseas.

Challenges include grocery prices and the immigration leak along the US-Mexican border. Also, there are vexing problems like the US role in resolving the horrific Israeli-Hamas war that is decimating Gaza, and overcoming Biden’s increasing signs of advanced age.

Biden can both debunk the notion of his own senescence and energize supporters with an active, feisty, free-wheeling stance on the campaign trail. It also looks like this is the course he intends to pursue. It’s a big part of his nature and who he is as a politician.

In appearing to reinvent himself as an aggressive campaigner with issues that have broad public support, Biden can win by an even bigger margin than his seven million vote advantage four years ago.

And even with a Republican party unprecedentedly compelled to unite behind his MAGA brand, Trump faces an uphill battle from a minority position.

It remains by no means clear than the GOP can recapture the White House with a base of little more than one-third of the electorate and few incentives for those outside that base to join.

LEGAL DELAYS HELPING TRUMP

BIDEN’S decision to directly confront the Supreme Court justices at his State of the Union address highlights the impact the American judiciary is certain to play in this election. That’s a development that has only rarely occurred in US history, but it’s a reality this time around.

There are many opinions about the effect on public opinion in the US of Trump’s legal travails. While he has already been found guilty in the assault and defamation cases brought against him by a writer in New York City and has also been found guilty of criminally misleading financiers and regulators in the conduct of his businesses, the big cases against him remain unresolved.

Those relate directly to his conduct as president.

Those cases and any appeals of decisions rendered will not be resolved before November. It’s possible that Trump will be convicted in Washington, New York City or Atlanta before the election, however. If so, he will, of course, appeal. But polling shows that those potential convictions will be significantly influential for critical voters.

Recent surveys and studies of recent elections cited in the New York Times point to a relevant reality: When events and legal decisions compel voters to focus on the anti-democratic behaviour of Trump and his allies, a small but critical group becomes less willing to vote for them.

Legal delays have almost certainly helped Trump’s presidential campaign. He has made clear that delay is his primary strategy for fighting the cases against him. It’s easy to see why. If he becomes president again, he can order the Justice Department to end any federal case against him.

The legal delays also make it superficially more likely that he is re-elected. The public will be less focused on his attempts to overturn the 2020 election if he isn’t on trial for them on or near Election Day. But polls have also shown that a significant share of Trump’s current supporters will not vote for him if he is convicted.