Election 2024: Apocalypse, Now or Later
Recapping the SOTU because you were watching The Traitors
I’ve been testing out a lot of Election 2024 themes.
Election 2024: Apocalypse, Now or Later.
Election 2024: Weekend at Bernies vs The Purge.
Election 2024: Nero or Neville.
Is The Daily Show still taking submissions?
The State of the Union was a miracle of science. Biden’s wax figure arrived and gave a speech recorded in an old timey announcer’s voice. He started, I kid you not, with a Reagan quote and it went downhill from there. We spent ten minutes on January 6th, which happened three years ago, then he said political violence has no place in America, five minutes before the Second Civil War is scheduled to begin. He encouraged people to have more children but isn’t going to do shit about climate change or, you know, the cost of daycare. He did say he’s thinking about maybe considering possibly creating a committee to talk about giving Americans a $400 a month tax credit on their new mortgage which will cover a) the gas bill or b) half an afternoon of daycare.
Then we had a twenty minute speech about how great the economy is- sure, if you don’t need to buy food or pay for housing. It was about here that he started flagging and it became a lot more difficult to understand every word but he did say “American Comeback” eleventy billion times so I guess we’ll all be getting red hats soon.
Hilariously, this is when the NY Times commentary announced that Trump was trying to rebut on Truth Social but it kept glitching. Stay classy, America.
After celebrating a deficit reduction as if the kids aren’t fully aware that the economy is fake, he started riffing and I think possibly came down against fully packed snack bags which I’m pretty sure is treason.
Honestly then there was a lot about ther student loan relief that did zero point zero for my student loans so I didn’t pay much attention, junk credit card fees which, sure, and a hilarious claim that the banks are sooo mad as if they aren’t laughing all the way to themselves.
One hour in and he still hadn’t said the word Gaza, but he sure did open with Ukraine and pretended that he cares about migrants as if deporting people isn’t his favorite hobby.
APPARENTLY GEORGE SANTOS WAS IN THE HOUSE. I have nothing but questions.
A little over an hour in we had a real stage management win, Biden completely forgot what he was talking about but some incredible staffer put a little prop by the podium for him to pick up if he forgot. Chef’s kiss. Give that I assume woman a raise.
Biden did address climate change, by saying he’s going to triple the Climate Corps, which I had to Goog. It is… not going to save the climate. But then he hilariously pretended that giving Kamala the gun violence prevention committee wasn’t completely designed to doom any chance of her running against him. Also we’ve had more mass shootings since the committee started so wyd. Biden literally said that when there was a shooting in Iowa Trump said “Just get over it” but Biden said “STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!” which is somehow better.
When Biden finally got to Gaza, I wished he hadn’t. He had Israeli families in the House but, notably, no Palestinians. He claimed that only 35,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza. He absolutely did not hold Israel responsible for a single thing. Which makes sense. After all, we’re the ones who gave them the bombs that murdered all of those children.
Then there was some stuff about China and curing cancer. Whatever. Then he turned into Sophia from the Golden Girls and said some stuff about people his age and World War 2. That’s not a joke. He actually chose to bring up WW2 at a moment when the entire country is freaking out about how old he is. Then he stumbled over the sentence about how he’s not too old to do this job. I can’t make this up, I don’t work for HBO.
And that, dear readers, was the 2024 State of the Union.
We survived Donald Trump the first time. We may not survive him a second. Biden and the Democrats have a responsibility to win this election, and nothing that happened in this SOTU is going to do that. We cannot trust that they will change tactics. As usual, it’s up to us. This SOTU was a hilarious nightmare. But I guess, better that than a President who may not show up at all.
Now back to Alan Cumming.