The State of the Union: Without Unity

President Joe Biden had an impossible task before him as he delivered the 2023 State of the Union address to a Joint Session of Congress.  He had to lie.  To admit that the country is without unity, that the very soul of the nation is split in two, like a patient with dissociative identity disorder (which was once called multiple personality disorder) would presumably have been too much truth to swallow.

What would the President have said had he decided to stick with the facts?  He would have spoken about America helping to precipitate the possible start of World War III by baiting Russia into attacking Ukraine over Ukraine’s overheated insistence on joining NATO (and our bizarre inability to say that simply wasn’t going to happen).  He would have talked about the reasons why Republicans would never countenance his party’s belief that children should be coaxed to consider whether they ought to opt for massive plastic surgeries to change their genders (which is, by the way, impossible).  He would have pointed out that his party, unlike the Republican party, doubts the value of individual autonomy, especially as it relates to the absolute right of Americans to bear arms and to speak their minds.  He would have stated that it is a miracle that the lack of unity in the Union has not devolved into outright civil war.

So, the President had to lie—a lot—to deliver the State of the Union address.  After all, our adversaries were listening—like China, which thinks so little of our sovereignty as to invade it with spy satellites inside balloons.  Russia was listening.  Iran was listening.  North Korea was listening.  They hate us, but the truth that had to be covered up is that we, in America, hate one another.

It used to be that the Union was at least glued together by respect for the Constitution, but that is over for about half the country (the Democrat half) that wonders whether the Constitution is a flawed document that ought to be tossed out.  We have come unglued.

Look, the truth is that the State of the Union is the story of two Unions—Democrat and Republican.  And it cannot be said with certainty whether the Democrat half is more aligned with American values or those of other nations, like China.  That’s the nation President Biden was addressing at the 2023 State of the Union address. 

So, where do we go from here?  Unity will be achieved not by finding middle ground.  None worth speaking about remains.  Unity will be achieved by one side vanquishing the other, in one election after another, forcing the other side into full scale retreat.

That’s what Joe Biden would have had to say if he were to have been truthful.