Republican Response to State of the Union Speech was "Perfect" & Revealing

But Not in a Way They Intended

Arkansas’ new Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders was always an odd choice to deliver the Republican response to President Biden’s State of the Union address last week. But she managed to surpass even the low expectations I had for her speech.

It was a disaster, if you were anyone except a modern day Republican, who is also a true believer in the Republicans culture wars, and the malignant, false, fantasies they manufacture to fuel it. If you get your “news” from Fox “News” you may have liked it. If reality is more your thing, it was cringe worthy. Jaw dropping in its failure to do what such an important speech, on the biggest stage of the year, before a huge national audience should do.

Huckabee Sanders is mostly remembered for her brazen lies as White House Press Secretary for the twice impeached and likely soon to be indicted, ex-PresidentDonald Trump, himself the biggest liar to ever occupy the White House - with 30,573 documented lies in four years according to the fact checkers at the Washington Post.

The Robert Mueller report documents that when she was asked to repeat some of her White House lies - under oath - she finally did tell the truth. She acknowledged they were falsehoods.

So, of course. Republican party leaders in Washington decided she was the perfect person to put in front of the massive audience Republicans would inherit following the State of the Union address.

Oddly, she turned out to be just that - perfect. Just not in the way Republicans likely intended.

Her performance perfectly showed the country what today’s Republican Party really is, when it comes to what should be - but in her hands was not - a serious discussion of our shared future as a country, the issues before us, and the choices we face.

Her speech was utterly and blatantly partisan, void of any substance or policy alternatives and long on imaginary tales about the current boogey man for Republicans, Joe Biden, and this fellow Democrats.

Seriously, that is what she thought the occasion demanded? A formal response to a State of the Union address, the first of which was delivered in person to Congress by President George Washington, called for that partisan mess?

Which brings me to my point.

I hope you noticed - and remember - how she began her speech.

Right at the top, she announced that she didn’t believe anything she heard from President Biden in his speech. That was pretty much the extent of her “response” to the actual State of the Union address. Her remarks from that point forward were all pathetic, partisan boiler plate, gaslighting and self promotion.

In other words, it was a perfect demonstration of how Republicans “debate” public policy these days. They don’t.

The Governor’s response was one of the most revealing party response to a President’s State of the Union I’ve ever seen. Just not in the way Republicans intended. It revealed the utter bankruptcy of today’s Republican Party when it comes to ideas, governing, and to even engage in meaningful discussion about public policy.

Biden’s address, I think raised the bar for future State of the Union speeches. It was that well crafted and delivered, not in a John F. Kennedy, soaring rhetoric sense, but in a let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work making America stronger kind of way.

Huckabee-Sanders offered no critique at all of it. None.

If there was something in Biden’s address that Republicans disagreed with, she didn’t tell America what it was, or why they hold a different view. She offered no evidence to support that different view. Her speech included no such discussion.

Huckabee Sanders didn’t offer even a peek at what any Republican alternatives might look like. As if Republican have alternatives. They don’t. (By the way, has anyone seen that “repeal and replace Obamacare with an even better plan” Republicans promised to deliver for most of Obama’s two terms in the White House but never even introduced? Of course not.)

Never mind that Biden’s speech included specific policy proposals, and a specific accounting of his work in office so far.

The fact-checkers who come out routinely after these big speeches - look at the report filed by the CBS News fact checkers, for example - combed through Biden’s speech and found his claims to be completely believable. The weakest rating they gave to any of his claims was “likely to be true.” The rest? all “true.”

Of course Sarah Huckabee Sanders - and today’s Republicans - want to swat it all away with a simple “I don’t believe it.” Better that you just tell your followers to ignore it, and move on to the next attack.

You see, Republicans are not really in the facts, evidence, data, debating - or governing - business anymore.

They peddle mostly ideology these days, wrapped in demagoguery. Instead of robust debate, they rely on gas lighting and non-stop attacks on those who don’t share their ideology or fall for their demagoguery.

The Republican method of public discourse today is an exercise in pouring sand in the gears of democracy.

Democracy needs full, robust and honest debate to function and survive. Republican ideology and demagoguery - as exemplified by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders speech after the State of the Union address - are strangling it.

It’s up to each of us to call it out when we see it. And to reject it.

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