Biden's SOTU was Trump's best case scenario...

This was a speech designed to shore up the base at the expense of luring in swing voters.

What Joe Biden and his team made crystal clear last night was that Biden is planning on running for reelection and that he understands that his first step in the process is to convince Democrats that he needs to be the nominee. If Biden had resigned himself to the idea that he might need to step down, there would be no need for him to give this sort of speech.

Make no mistake. This was not a state of the union address designed to tell the general public how the country is doing. This was a primary campaign speech designed to undermine those who are becoming more and more open about replacing Biden as the nominee. It was designed to pull the far left and left wing MSM back into his corner. It was "red meat, red meat, followed by more red meat".

The important clarification here is that when people suggest it was a campaign speech, we need to really understand that it was more of a "primary" speech than a campaign speech designed to appeal to the general electorate. While he attacked Trump, the attacks were more within the realm of political rhetoric that appeals mostly to Democrats. In other words, Biden understands that he needs to first shore up his base before he can "pivot" to the general electorate. Had he given a fluffy SOTU address that most Americans would expect and possibly enjoy, he likely would have been seen as weak by his in-party naysayers. So he went full throttle attack mode.

The best case scenario for Trump was that Biden did enough for his Party to resign themselves to the fact that he will probably be the nominee, while the President simultaneously was seen as partisan and unpresidential to the rest of America. I think that this is exactly what happened. I think his chances of remaining the nominee increased dramatically (and I think that will be the story for many on the left). But I also believe he turned off swing voters and undermined the very reason that many voted for Biden over Trump in 2020 (which was moving away from the divisiveness of Trump).

On a different subject. I thought that the response was very captivating. Katie Britt was given the thankless of job of trying to follow a big SOTU speech. From what I am reading, there is a lot of "mocking" for the general tone of the speech and the attack dogs are out on Britt. But I couldn't help but watch it straight through (which I could not do with Biden's speech). I thought she hit all the major marks and while her tone was certainly odd, it was something that grew on me. At first I thought she was nervous but then realized she seemed genuinely passionate. I get that many will not like her. Wearing a cross, talking about god, saying honest things in an honest way without yelling. Britt is exactly what liberals hate these days. But I believe she has a big future at least in her own state, if not nationally some day.