About That State Of The Union Address

      The State of the Union came and went pretty predictably, and commentators both professional and amateur said predictable things.  Democrats claimed things had never been better and praised President Biden, while Republicans painted the country as various shades of dystopian hellscape and called the President delusional.

      Since I think President Biden is what you get when you ring up Central Casting and tell them to send over a generic Democrat President, and that the country is experiencing an unexpectedly average period of averageness* which could have been much worse -- and that the person in the Oval Office doesn't have a lot of control over that -- I don't have much to contribute to the discussion.

      For a long time in the early years of this country, Presidents just sent Congress a letter and avoided the spectacle of gathering up everyone and trying to keep a lid on the junior members while the tenant from 1600 Pennsy spoke.  That would offer a lot less scope for intemperate behavior, and might even keep the most foolish members of Congress from looking silly.

      On the other hand, we don't owe them, Presidents and Congress assembled alike, any more dignity that they can muster by their own efforts and circuses have all pretty much stopped touring these days.  Julius Fučík wrote a perfectly good soundtrack for the hooting and hollering parts of the event and it hardly gets played any more.
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* Yes, things are more expensive these days.  I grew up with relatively high inflation, in the sure and certain knowledge that even when my pay increased, prices were going to keep climbing and I'd end up where I started.  So it feels normal, even after decades in which I did gain economic ground, to the point of owning (me and the bank) a house and having a paid-for car that's not falling apart.  Is everything great?  No, hell no; but it's not life in a shattered wasteland, either.  So political prophets of sunshine or gloom all sound to me like they're peddling something with only a tenuous connection to reality.