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This yr’s State of the Union deal with successfully doubled as a marketing campaign launch for President Joe Biden as he sought to spotlight the dangers of a second time period for Donald Trump.
Talking a day and a half after Trump appeared to wrap up the GOP nomination, Biden put entrance and middle the methods wherein the previous president might put the lives of these watching the speech in peril.
All through the 2020 marketing campaign, Biden framed the race as a “battle for the soul of the nation.” This time, he’s arguing that it’s not simply the soul of the nation that’s on the road; it’s the very our bodies of those that inhabit it — from their entry to well being care to their skill to make selections about when and the right way to begin a household.
The speech got here in per week wherein former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley suspended her bid for the Republican nomination, having gained only one state on Tremendous Tuesday, whereas outgoing Senate Republican Chief Mitch McConnell threw his support behind Trump, the person he as soon as stated was “practically and morally responsible” for the Jan. 6, 2021, rebel. McConnell’s falling in line was all of the extra exceptional on condition that the assault on the Capitol actually put him in peril.
As in each State of the Union, Biden touched on a laundry checklist of pressing points: offering desperately wanted assist to Ukraine, curbing the humanitarian disaster on the southern border, making certain the fitting to vote, defending transgender Individuals, elevating the minimal wage, securing gun security reform, and extra.
However Biden additionally put an emphasis on healthcare coverage through the State of the Union.
As reproductive rights face unrelenting assaults within the post-Roe period, the president emphasised his help for bodily autonomy. He did in order Latorya Beasley, whose in-vitro fertilization remedies had been canceled after the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling, and Kate Cox, who needed to leave her home state of Texas for a lifesaving abortion, listened beside the primary woman, Jill Biden.
After emphasizing his personal help for reproductive freedom, Biden famous that his predecessor was “determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned. He’s the reason it was overturned. In fact, he brags about it. Look at the chaos that has resulted.” He went on to ask lawmakers opposing reproductive rights, “My God, what freedoms will you take away next?”
We have already got a preview of what Trump and his allies would do with the leverage of one other Trump time period. After the Alabama Supreme Courtroom successfully halted IVF — a transfer solely quickly reversed by a brand new legislation within the state — Trump half-heartedly referred to as for some protections.
However The New York Instances reports that he’s privately supported a federal abortion ban, and Mission 2025 — the transition plan by Trump’s allies on the Heritage Basis — calls on the Division of Well being and Human Providers to declassify abortion as well being care and reject the approval of medicine abortion.
In line with recent reporting from Axios, the Biden marketing campaign plans to broadcast Mission 2025 and join the dots between it and Trump’s plans, additional highlighting the space between the 2 presidential candidates on reproductive rights.
Individuals have seen this distinction, not simply with Trump, however the Republican celebration writ giant. That’s why, in her rebuttal, Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt largely strayed away from reproductive rights past the in vitro fertilization entry her residence state’s court docket threatened, and that her personal colleagues within the Senate refused to protect.
Then there’s the Reasonably priced Care Act, identified colloquially as Obamacare. Practically 14 years after its enactment, 59% of American adults have a positive view of the laws, in accordance with health policy nonprofit KFF. This yr, medical insurance enrollment via the Reasonably priced Care Act surged to a record 20 million, practically a 25% enhance from the earlier file reached the year before.
The Reasonably priced Care Act was Trump’s white whale all through his first time period in workplace, as he famously didn't corral Senate Republicans behind a invoice to repeal it.
The Reasonably priced Care Act was Trump’s white whale all through his first time period in workplace, as he famously failed to corral Senate Republicans behind a invoice to repeal it. The previous president’s opposition to the coverage hasn’t wavered within the years since.
Obamacare has been the legislation of the land for practically a technology, and the Biden marketing campaign plans to spotlight the urgency of defending it from a second Trump time period. Senior communications adviser for Biden-Harris 2024, T.J. Ducklo, not too long ago told Politico that “Joe Biden will protect and expand Obamacare — and Donald Trump has tried to rip it away and promised to try to again if given the chance.”
As Biden himself stated through the State of the Union, “Folks, the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, is still a very big deal. Over one hundred million of you can no longer be denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.”
What’s extra, the general public has skilled firsthand Trump’s ineptitude throughout a public well being disaster. Whereas then-candidate Biden was warning as early as January of 2020 that COVID-19 was a critical menace, Trump repeatedly discouraged the usage of masks and continued holding packed marketing campaign rallies. As voting by mail expanded to accommodate Individuals’ security throughout a worldwide pandemic, Trump used that expansion to sow mistrust of our total election system.
And although it could appear that lengthy wait instances are the one factor a physician’s workplace and a polling place have in widespread, there’s strong evidence of a direct correlation between the well being of a nation’s individuals and the well being of its democracy on measurements comparable to toddler mortality and general dying charges.
That’s why it issues that Trump and his allies have sought to undermine that democracy. Trump has doubled down on his promise to be a “dictator” on the primary day of his administration, and he’s beforehand suggested that elements of the Structure must be terminated. Meantime, his allies have already begun difficult hundreds of voter registrations in key states, in accordance with The New York Times.
“January 6th and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War,” the President stated. “But they failed. America stood strong and democracy prevailed. We must be honest, the threat to democracy must be defended.”
On Thursday night time, like so a lot of his predecessors, Biden proclaimed that the state of the union is robust. However now he's additionally asking voters to understand the stark contrasts in what simply grew to become a two-man race. Till then, all the pieces from precise our bodies to the physique politic is on shaky floor.
For extra thought-provoking insights from Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele and Symone Sanders-Townsend, watch “The Weekend” each Saturday and Sunday at 8 a.m. ET on MSNBC.
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