February 18, 2022

David Axelrod wrote an informed op-ed on the website of The New York Times on February 14. In it he begged Mr. Biden to use the platform of the State of the Union Address to express his empathy for what Americans have gone through in the past two years. Rather than do what most of his predecessors have done with this time before the Congress and the American people, laud his administration’s accomplishments and paint a rosy picture of the future, he should acknowledge that the state of the union is not great although better than when he took office. Then he needs to spend a little time convincing us all that he gets the problems—the virus, inflation, immigration, crime—and has concrete ideas for how to make progress on these issues in real time.