Last night, as NPI con­trib­u­tor Joel Con­nel­ly report­ed here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate, Pres­i­dent Joe Biden gave an incred­i­ble State of the Union address to a joint ses­sion of Con­gress, mak­ing the case that Amer­i­ca needs pro­gres­sive ideas and stal­wart lead­er­ship in the face of Don­ald Trump’s assault on our democracy.

Biden’s speech was one of his best, pos­si­bly the best he’s ever deliv­ered, despite the occa­sion­al man­gling of a word and a few coughs. The Pres­i­dent spoke with deep con­vic­tion and from the heart. He fierce­ly and pas­sion­ate­ly defend­ed the val­ues that most Amer­i­cans hold dear. He laid out his accom­plish­ments, vision, and pro­posed pol­i­cy direc­tions very effec­tive­ly. He refresh­ing­ly did not both­er to try to pan­der to Don­ald Trump’s enablers. Instead, he chal­lenged them, over and over again, to drop their alle­giance to Trump and ful­fill their oaths of office.

Most Repub­li­cans sat in stony silence through­out the speech. Cam­eras showed them not even both­er­ing to applaud for lines that in the past would have gen­er­at­ed a bipar­ti­san roar of approval. Such is Trump’s hold over the fac­tion that used to be the par­ty of Lin­coln, Ted­dy Roo­sevelt, and Eisen­how­er. Some appeared stunned by Biden’s pas­sion and will­ing­ness to call out the ele­phants in the room.

Over and over again, the Pres­i­dent invoked the log­ic of pro­gres­sive val­ues to pitch an effec­tive agen­da for the coun­try’s future, bring­ing con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats to their feet and smiles to the faces of count­less vot­ers and activists watch­ing at home. Let’s look at some of his best lines and why they worked so well.

BIDEN: [M]y pur­pose tonight is to wake up the Con­gress and alert the Amer­i­can peo­ple that this is no ordi­nary moment either. Not since Pres­i­dent Lin­coln and the Civ­il War have free­dom and democ­ra­cy been under assault at home as they are today.

Analy­sis: Biden opened his speech by look­ing back to two key moments in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. He first men­tioned the chal­lenge FDR faced in the 1930s when fas­cism was ris­ing around the world and war was immi­nent. Then, in the excerpt above, he drew a par­al­lel with the fraught days lead­ing up to the Con­fed­er­ate insur­rec­tion of the 1860s. He blunt­ly told the joint ses­sion right at the out­set of his speech that his pur­pose in com­ing to the cham­ber was to wake up Con­gress and alert the peo­ple of the dan­ger that the Unit­ed States is fac­ing from the Con­sti­tu­tion’s domes­tic ene­mies. This gave the speech valu­able context.

BIDEN: If the Unit­ed States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe is at risk. The free world will be at risk, embold­en­ing oth­ers to do what they wish to do us harm. My mes­sage to Pres­i­dent Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is sim­ple: We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.

Analy­sis: We will not bow down was a great line. It pow­er­ful­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed Biden’s com­mit­ment to sol­i­dar­i­ty and friend­ship with our allies, espe­cial­ly our fel­low NATO mem­bers. It rebuked the mur­der­ous dic­ta­tor Vladimir Putin and the evil he rep­re­sents. And it pro­vid­ed a con­trast with Don­ald Trump, who would serve Putin’s inter­ests and agen­da if he were returned to the White House.

BIDEN: My pre­de­ces­sor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about Jan­u­ary 6th. I will not do that. This is a moment to speak the truth and to bury the lies. Here’s the sim­ple truth: You can’t love your coun­try only when you win. As I’ve done ever since being elect­ed to office, I ask all of you, with­out regard to par­ty, to join togeth­er and defend democ­ra­cy. Remem­ber your oath of office to defend against all threats for­eign and domestic.

Analy­sis: Lead­ing by exam­ple, Pres­i­dent Biden blunt­ly called out the dis­gust­ing attempts to white­wash what hap­pened on Jan­u­ary 6th by many Trump enablers who’ve tried to pre­tend that it was akin to a “nor­mal tourist vis­it” or that the vio­lent mob of insur­rec­tion­ists were engag­ing in “legit­i­mate polit­i­cal dis­course.” Biden not­ed, cor­rect­ly, that “some of you here seek to bury the truth about Jan­u­ary 6th.” He did not name names, but he did­n’t need to. The likes of Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene knew he was speak­ing direct­ly to them. The “remem­ber your oath of office” bit was absolute­ly fan­tas­tic and deeply sat­is­fy­ing to hear.

BIDEN: Look, its deci­sion to over­turn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court major­i­ty wrote the fol­low­ing — and with all due respect, Jus­tices — “Women are not with­out elec­toral — elec­toral pow­er” — excuse me — “elec­toral or polit­i­cal pow­er.” You’re about to real­ize just how much you were right about that.

Analy­sis: This line got the atten­tion of a great many observers and speech­watch­ers, as it was unprece­dent­ed for a State of the Union address. But extra­or­di­nary times call for extra­or­di­nary lines. Address­ing the Supreme Court jus­tices sit­ting in front of him — who tried their very best to remain expres­sion­less — Biden deliv­ered a sting­ing admon­ish­ment of the hor­rif­ic Dobbs deci­sion. He expressed his view that in the com­ing elec­tion, a large per­cent­age of women vot­ers will take a strong stand for can­di­dates and bal­lot mea­sures that uphold repro­duc­tive rights, defy­ing Samuel Ali­to and the major­i­ty who threw out Roe.

In adja­cent parts of the speech, Biden spoke of “repro­duc­tive free­dom”, sen­si­bly invok­ing pro­gres­sive val­ues and avoid­ing prob­lem­at­ic life ver­sus choice framing.

BIDEN: Folks, I inher­it­ed an econ­o­my that was on the brink. Now, our econ­o­my is lit­er­al­ly the envy of the world. Fif­teen mil­lion new jobs in just three years. A record. A record. Unem­ploy­ment at 50-year lows. A record 16 mil­lion Amer­i­cans are start­ing small busi­ness­es, and each one is a lit­er­al act of hope, with his­toric job growth and small-busi­ness growth for Black and His­pan­ics and Asian Amer­i­cans. Eight hun­dred thou­sand new man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs in Amer­i­ca and counting.

Analy­sis: Although income inequal­i­ty remains a prob­lem, there is good news to report and cel­e­brate, and Pres­i­dent Biden shared it. The coun­try has so far defied the pre­dic­tions of pes­simistic econ­o­mists who fore­saw con­trac­tions. Instead, more jobs have been cre­at­ed and more Amer­i­cans are start­ing small busi­ness­es. Pres­i­dent Biden right­ful­ly called out this progress and point­ed out that it does­n’t always make or lead the news, but it’s impor­tant and should be get­ting discussed.

BIDEN: And thanks — and thanks to our Bipar­ti­san Infra­struc­ture Law, 46,000 new projects have been announced all across your com­mu­ni­ties. And, by the way, I noticed some of you who’ve strong­ly vot­ed against it are there cheer­ing on that mon­ey com­ing in. And I like it. I’m with you. I’m with you. And if any of you don’t want that mon­ey in your dis­trict, just let me know.

Analy­sis: Moments of lev­i­ty can real­ly help a speech, and here, Biden scored real points by mak­ing a joke at Repub­li­cans’ expense. Obvi­ous­ly, they want the mon­ey that the Infra­struc­ture Invest­ment and Jobs Act is bring­ing into their dis­tricts, even though they refused to help pass the bill. Point­ing out their hypocrisy is impor­tant — the mass media can’t be expect­ed to hold these folks accountable.

BIDEN: I grew up in a home where trick­le-down eco­nom­ics did­n’t put much on my dad’s kitchen table. That’s why I’m deter­mined to turn things around so the mid­dle class does well. When they do well, the poor have a way up and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well.

Analy­sis: We’re always down for a swipe at trick­le-down eco­nom­ics, and Pres­i­dent Biden deliv­ered a great one in his speech. He made it per­son­al by empha­siz­ing that trick­le-down did­n’t get results for his fam­i­ly and mil­lions of oth­er Amer­i­can fam­i­lies — but inclu­sive eco­nom­ic poli­cies like rais­ing the min­i­mum wage and pro­vid­ing paid fam­i­ly and med­ical leave and child­care can help a lot.

BIDEN: And there’s more to do to make sure you’re feel­ing the ben­e­fits of all we’re doing. Amer­i­cans pay more for pre­scrip­tion drugs than any­where in the world. It’s wrong, and I’m end­ing it.  With a law that I pro­posed and signed — and not one of your Repub­li­can bud­dies work- — vot­ed for it — we final­ly beat Big Pharma.

Analy­sis: More account­abil­i­ty! Biden seemed to be speak­ing to con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats here when he said “not one of your Repub­li­can bud­dies… vot­ed for it.” That’s a ref­er­ence to Repub­li­cans’ refusal to help pass the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act back in 2022, when Democ­rats had con­trol of the U.S. House. On their own, Democ­rats were able to empow­er Medicare to nego­ti­ate low­er prices for drugs.

BIDEN: Folks, the Afford­able Care Act — the old “Oba­macare” — is still a very big deal. Over 100 mil­lion of you can no longer be denied health insur­ance because of a pre­ex­ist­ing con­di­tion. But my pre­de­ces­sor and many in this cham­ber want to take the — that pre­scrip­tion drug away by repeal­ing Afford­able Care Act. I’m not going to let that hap­pen. We stopped you fifty times before, and we’ll stop you again.

Analy­sis: Anoth­er instance where Biden spoke direct­ly to Repub­li­cans, remind­ing them “we stopped you fifty times before” and vow­ing that “we’ll stop you again.” That’s exact­ly the defi­ant deter­mi­na­tion that mil­lions of Amer­i­cans want to see from their Pres­i­dent. They want a fight­er who’s look­ing out for them. Biden made it abun­dant­ly clear: as long as he’s around, he will pre­vent Repub­li­cans from repeal­ing the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act and erad­i­cat­ing Amer­i­cans’ healthcare.

BIDEN: I know the cost of hous­ing is so impor­tant to you. Infla­tion keeps com­ing down. Mort­gage rates will come down as well, and the Fed acknowl­edges that. But I’m not wait­ing. I want to pro­vide an annu­al tax cred­it that will give Amer­i­cans $400 a month for the next two years as mort­gage rates come down to put toward their mort­gages when they buy their first home or trade up for a lit­tle more space. That’s for two years.

Analy­sis: Oh, look — a seri­ous, cred­i­ble pro­pos­al to help low­er costs for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans that is guar­an­teed not to get a sin­gle Repub­li­can vote! But it’s essen­tial to put good ideas on the table, and Pres­i­dent Biden did that in this moment by propos­ing this tax cred­it which he knows John­son and McConnell won’t support.

BIDEN: I want to give pub­lic school teach­ers a raise.

Analy­sis: This came at the tail end of a set of com­ments about mak­ing col­lege more afford­able, increas­ing access to ear­ly learn­ing, and invest­ing more fund­ing in edu­ca­tion. But it was an impor­tant aside. It got a big reac­tion at the watch par­ty I was at, and it res­onat­ed deeply with me, because my par­ents are edu­ca­tors. Proud edu­ca­tors who’ve spent most of their lives teaching.

BIDEN: [T]he Child Tax Cred­it I passed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic cut tax­es for mil­lions of work­ing fam­i­lies and cut child pover­ty in half. Restore that Child Tax Cred­it. No child should go hun­gry in this coun­try. The way to make the tax code fair is to make big cor­po­ra­tions and the very wealthy begin to pay their share. Remem­ber in 2020, 55 of the biggest com­pa­nies in Amer­i­ca made $40 bil­lion and paid zero in fed­er­al income tax. Zero.

Analy­sis: No child should go hun­gry in this coun­try. Amen! I have no doubt that the Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for NPI’s home con­gres­sion­al dis­trict, Suzan Del­Bene, clapped fierce­ly for this line. Restor­ing the Child Tax Cred­it is a huge pri­or­i­ty for her, as it should be for every mem­ber of Con­gress. It’s absolute­ly ridicu­lous that Repub­li­cans don’t sup­port this, but do sup­port giv­ing giant cor­po­ra­tions more tax cuts. Biden did a great job point­ing out that our nation’s largest enter­pris­es don’t need to be show­ered with more mon­ey from Congress.

BIDEN: No bil­lion­aire should pay a low­er fed­er­al tax rate than a teacher, a san­i­ta­tion work­er, or a nurse. I pro­posed a min­i­mum tax for bil­lion­aires of 25 per­cent — just 25 per­cent. You know what that would raise? That would raise $500 bil­lion over the next 10 years.  And imag­ine what that could do for Amer­i­ca. Imag­ine a future with afford­able child­care, mil­lions of fam­i­lies can get what they need to go to work to help grow the econ­o­my. Imag­ine a future with paid leave, because no one should have to choose between work­ing and tak­ing care of their sick fam­i­ly mem­ber. Imag­ine — imag­ine a future with home care and elder­care, and peo­ple liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ties so they can stay in their homes and fam­i­ly care­givers can final­ly get the pay they deserve.

Analy­sis: Sim­ply out­stand­ing fram­ing here. In sim­ple, direct terms, and again invok­ing the log­ic of pro­gres­sive val­ues, Pres­i­dent Biden laid out an inclu­sive vision of eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty for Amer­i­ca’s future. A future in which the wealthy begin to pay more of their fair share. A future in which we strength­en our pub­lic ser­vices instead of weak­en­ing them. His exhor­ta­tions to imag­ine a future where we all do bet­ter were pre­cise­ly what mem­bers of Con­gress need­ed to hear.

BIDEN: Tonight, let’s all agree once again to stand up for seniors. Many of my friends on the oth­er side of the aisle want to put Social Secu­ri­ty on the chop­ping block. If any­one here tries to cut Social Secu­ri­ty or Medicare or raise the retire­ment age, I will stop you.

Analy­sis: In vow­ing to defend Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare from right wing cuts, Pres­i­dent Biden again drew a strong con­trast between his plat­form and the oppo­si­tion’s plans for 2025 if they regain pow­er. Repub­li­cans like Rick Scott are eager to slash Social Secu­ri­ty and Medicare — Biden told them off.

BIDEN: Look, too many cor­po­ra­tions raise prices to pad their prof­its, charg­ing more and more for less and less. That’s why we’re crack­ing down on cor­po­ra­tions that engage in price goug­ing and decep­tive pric­ing, from food to health­care to hous­ing. In fact, the snack com­pa­nies think you won’t notice if they change the size of the bag and put a hell of a lot few­er — same — same size bag — put few­er chips in it. No, I’m not jok­ing. It’s called “shrink-fla­tion.” Pass Bob­by Casey’s bill and stop this.

Analy­sis: Great call­out to Bob Casey, and won­der­ful affir­ma­tion of the work that for­mer Sec­re­tary of Labor Robert Reich has been doing to edu­cate Amer­i­cans about cor­po­rate greed. Reich’s pieces on shrink­fla­tion are essen­tial view­ing. Biden nat­u­ral­ly segued into a bit about erad­i­cat­ing junk fees right after this.

BIDEN: I’m told my pre­de­ces­sor called mem­bers of Con­gress in the Sen­ate to demand they block the bill. He feels polit­i­cal win — he viewed it as a — it would be a polit­i­cal win for me and a polit­i­cal los­er for him. It’s not about him. It’s not about me.

Analy­sis: These remarks came dur­ing the mid­dle of Biden’s com­ments about the doomed bor­der deal that Repub­li­cans demand­ed and then tor­pe­doed. This was the one part of the speech where Biden did some Clin­ton-style tri­an­gu­lat­ing. Biden smart­ly point­ed out that Repub­li­cans don’t want to fix the prob­lem, they want to cam­paign on the prob­lem so they can seize more pow­er. (Biden added lat­er: “We can fight about fix­ing the bor­der or we can fix it. I’m ready to fix it.”)

BIDEN: I will not demo­nize immi­grants, say­ing they are “poi­son in the blood of our coun­try.” I will not sep­a­rate fam­i­lies. I will not ban peo­ple because of their faith. Unlike my pre­de­ces­sor, on my first day in office, I intro­duced a com­pre­hen­sive bill to fix our immi­gra­tion sys­tem. Take a look at it. It has all these and more: secure the bor­der, pro­vide a path­way to cit­i­zen­ship for DREAM­ers, and so much more.

Analy­sis: This bit could have been longer, and the Pres­i­dent could deployed pro­gres­sive fram­ing to explain that immi­grants are real­ly new Amer­i­cans who have come to this coun­try in pur­suit of the Amer­i­can dream, and deserve to be wel­comed and giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­tribute to our soci­ety, not hunt­ed down and thrown into deten­tion cen­ters run by for-prof­it companies.

BIDEN: We’re also mak­ing his­to­ry by con­fronting the cli­mate cri­sis, not deny­ing it. I don’t think any of you think there’s no longer a cli­mate cri­sis. At least, I hope you don’t. I’m tak­ing the most sig­nif­i­cant action ever on cli­mate in the his­to­ry of the world. I’m cut­ting our car­bon emis­sions in half by 2030; cre­at­ing tens of thou­sands of clean ener­gy jobs, like the IBEW work­ers build­ing and installing 500,000 elec­tric vehi­cle charg­ing sta­tions — con­serv­ing 30 per­cent of America’s lands and waters by 2030; and tak­ing action on envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice — fence-line com­mu­ni­ties smoth­ered by the lega­cy of pol­lu­tion. And pat­terned after the Peace Corps and Amer­i­ca­Corps [Ameri­Corps], I launched the Cli­mate Corps — (applause) — to put 20,000 young peo­ple to work in the fore­front of our clean ener­gy future. I’ll triple that num­ber in a decade.

Analy­sis: These were the extent of Pres­i­dent Biden’s cli­mate-focused com­ments dur­ing the speech. He could have said more, but what he did say was mean­ing­ful, and pro­gres­sive lead­ers were of course delight­ed that he men­tioned the Cli­mate Corps. (TV cam­eras showed Alexan­dria Oca­sio-Cortez jump­ing up and cheering.)

BIDEN: I’m proud we beat the NRA when I signed the most sig­nif­i­cant gun safe­ty law in near­ly 30 years because of this Con­gress. We now must beat the NRA again. I’m demand­ing a ban on assault weapons and high-capac­i­ty mag­a­zines.  Pass uni­ver­sal back­ground checks.

Analy­sis: Great call to action. Wash­ing­ton State has done all of these things and Amer­i­ca can too — if we get enough pro­gres­sive leg­is­la­tors elect­ed to Con­gress and elim­i­nate the fil­i­buster so Mitch McConnell and his cau­cus can’t stand in the way of the gun respon­si­bil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion that Amer­i­cans want and deserve.

BIDEN: The Unit­ed States has been lead­ing inter­na­tion­al efforts to get more human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance into Gaza. Tonight, I’m direct­ing the U.S. mil­i­tary to lead an emer­gency mis­sion to estab­lish a tem­po­rary pier in the Mediter­ranean on the coast of Gaza that can receive large ship­ments car­ry­ing food, water, med­i­cine, and tem­po­rary shel­ters. No U.S. boots will be on the ground. A tem­po­rary pier will enable a mas­sive increase in the amount of human­i­tar­i­an assis­tance get­ting into Gaza every day.

Analy­sis: This was anoth­er newsy part of the speech. Relief for Gaza is long over­due, and while we wish this move had been made soon­er, it is very wel­come. The extreme Netanyahu gov­ern­ment opposed by most Israelis can­not be relied upon to pro­vide the aid that suf­fer­ing, besieged Pales­tini­ans need. That’s why it is crit­i­cal that the world com­mu­ni­ty step up. Amer­i­can lead­er­ship can facil­i­tate that.

BIDEN: I’ve revi­tal­ized our part­ner­ship and alliance in the Pacif­ic: India, Aus­tralia, Japan, South Korea, the Pacif­ic Islands. I’ve made sure that the most advanced Amer­i­can tech­nolo­gies can’t be used in Chi­na — not allow­ing to trade them there. Frankly, for all his tough talk on Chi­na, it nev­er occurred to my pre­de­ces­sor to do any of that.

Analy­sis: Biden made the most of every oppor­tu­ni­ty in the speech to get in digs at Trump and draw a con­trast, and was able to do so effec­tive­ly again here. These com­ments remind­ed me of the report­ing from 2016 in which peo­ple went to check out Trump’s mer­chan­dise and found that it was made in Chi­na. Trump does not prac­tice what he preach­es and it’s good for the media to be remind­ed of that.

BIDEN: Let me close with this. I know you don’t want to hear any more, Lind­sey, but I got to say a few more things. I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while. When you get to be my age, cer­tain things become clear­er than ever. I know the Amer­i­can story.

Analy­sis: As we’ll see in a moment, Biden had some­thing very seri­ous to say right after this, but he was able to work in anoth­er moment of lev­i­ty with a self-dep­re­cat­ing joke. Unlike Don­ald Trump, Joe Biden can laugh at him­self, and hope­ful­ly peo­ple watch­ing took notice of that distinction.

BIDEN: Again and again, I’ve seen the con­test between com­pet­ing forces in the bat­tle for the soul of our nation, between those who want to pull Amer­i­ca back to the past and those who want to move Amer­i­ca into the future. My life­time has taught me to embrace free­dom and democ­ra­cy, a future based on core val­ues that have defined Amer­i­ca — hon­esty, decen­cy, dig­ni­ty, and equal­i­ty — to respect every­one; to give every­one a fair shot; to give hate no safe har­bor. Now, oth­er peo­ple my age see it dif­fer­ent­ly. The Amer­i­can sto­ry of resent­ment, revenge, and ret­ri­bu­tion. That’s not me.

Analy­sis: Here, Biden spelled out what his val­ues and prin­ci­ples are, and con­trast­ed them with Trump’s tox­ic pol­i­tics of destruc­tion (“resent­ment, revenge, and ret­ri­bu­tion”.) The “oth­er peo­ple my age see it dif­fer­ent­ly” was a great barb.

BIDEN: In my career, I’ve been told I was too young. By the way, they did­n’t let me on the Sen­ate ele­va­tors for votes some­times. They — not a joke. And I’ve been told I am too old. Whether young or old, I’ve always been known — I’ve always known what endures. I’ve known our North Star. The very idea of Amer­i­ca is that we’re all cre­at­ed equal, deserves to be treat­ed equal­ly through­out our lives. We’ve nev­er ful­ly lived up to that idea, but we’ve nev­er walked away from it either. And I won’t walk away from it now.

Analy­sis: The “they did­n’t let me on Sen­ate ele­va­tors for votes some­times” was a great lit­tle anec­dote that hope­ful­ly remind­ed reporters and oth­ers watch­ing that there real­ly was once a time when the rap on Biden was that he was too young. And now, as he acknowl­edged, peo­ple are say­ing he’s too old. Delib­er­ate­ly con­fronting this crit­i­cism head-on was the right choice.

BIDEN: My fel­low Amer­i­cans, the issue fac­ing our nation isn’t how old we are; it’s how old are our ideas. Hate, anger, revenge, ret­ri­bu­tion are the old­est of ideas. But you can’t lead Amer­i­ca with ancient ideas that only take us back. To lead Amer­i­ca, the land of pos­si­bil­i­ties, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done. Tonight, you’ve heard mine.

Analy­sis: More beau­ti­ful fram­ing here. Pro­gres­sives iden­ti­fy as such because we want to make progress — we want to go for­ward, not back­ward. We know we can’t return to the past, but we can learn from it and do bet­ter in the future. That is what Pres­i­dent Biden believes, and he point­ed out last night that real lead­er­ship entails lead­ing peo­ple to new posi­tions and embrac­ing new ideas. Bravo!

BIDEN: I see a future where [we’re] defend­ing democ­ra­cy, you don’t dimin­ish it. I see a future where we restore the right to choose and pro­tect our free­doms, not take them away. I see a future where the mid­dle class has — final­ly has a fair shot and the wealthy have to pay their fair share in tax­es. I see a future where we save the plan­et from the cli­mate cri­sis and our coun­try from gun vio­lence. Above all, I see a future for all Amer­i­cans. I see a coun­try for all Amer­i­cans. And I will always be Pres­i­dent for all Amer­i­cans because I believe in Amer­i­ca. I believe in you, the Amer­i­can people.

Analy­sis: Com­ing at the end of this speech, these com­ments nice­ly sum­ma­rized Biden’s plat­form and vision as he pre­pared to step away from the podi­um and begin shak­ing hands again. The Pres­i­dent makes no apolo­gies for being an opti­mist, nor should he. Real lead­ers work to bring peo­ple togeth­er for progress, cheer­ful­ly and con­fi­dent­ly. Joe Biden sees pos­si­bil­i­ties when he thinks about the future, and so should we all. The days ahead need­n’t be bleak and ter­ri­ble. A bet­ter future is with­in reach. We’re more like­ly to secure it if we believe in it.

In decades past, Amer­i­ca has sur­vived insur­rec­tions, depres­sions, world wars, and (so far) the threat of nuclear anni­hi­la­tion. And we can pre­vail over the forces of dark­ness again. But we’ll have to come togeth­er to make it hap­pen. Unit­ed, we’ll keep this repub­lic stand­ing. Divid­ed, we’re more like­ly to fall — and fail.

This is a time when courage and good judg­ment are need­ed. Kudos to Pres­i­dent Biden for lay­ing out the choice fac­ing this coun­try so powerfully.