In his first State of the Union address after the COVID pandemic was declared over, President Joe Biden focused on the obvious challenges for Republican and Democratic members of Congress alike. A mere 35 days after new and returning members were sworn in to the new Congress, Biden urged the new Republican majority in the House to work with Democrats to repair COVID-related damages to the nation’s economy — and to ensure that other equally serious problems would be addressed as well.
Given the Tuesday evening antics by hard-right Republican members, one might think the search for bipartisanship is now a fool’s errand. But if the GOP pragmatists distance themselves from their party’s nihilists, then both parties would be free to do the hard work necessary to accomplish great things.
Biden delivered his request as a challenge: “To my Republican friends, if we could work together in the last Congress, there is no reason we can’t work together in this new Congress.”
He reinforced that plea by noting that Americans expect members to put aside their differences for the good of the country: “The people sent us a clear message. Fighting for the sake of fighting, power for the sake of power, conflict for the sake of conflict, gets us nowhere.”
But he also referred to his vision for the country, a vision he developed over his decades as a legislator: It is “to restore the soul of the nation, to rebuild the backbone of America: the middle class, to unite the country. We’ve been sent here to finish the job.”