President Obama delivered what will be the final State of the Union address of his presidency Tuesday night before a joint session of Congress. There was much build-up to the speech, both in the national media, but also from the White House itself, which advertised the address as diverging from how previous speeches to the nation have gone.
The President took on the pessimism that he says has infused politics – especially as Republicans continue to vie for their party’s nomination for the presidential election this fall. But he also expressed his concerns over the climate of partisanship that he sees – at one point faulting himself for not being able to overcome that climate.
Lilly Goren is a professor of political science and global studies at Carroll University in Waukesha, and she reflects on the speech and the Republican response:
Goren lays out three takeaways from Tuesday night's address:
1. The President's conversational demeanor:
"Some people are calling it 'professorial.' And I understand that not in a kind of elitist or highfalutin way, but rather 'this is how I think about things, this is how we should think about some of these problems that we haven't solved, but I'm still thinking about them and I'm still working at them,'" Goren says.
2. Expressed frustrations and partial responsibility for increased partisan divide:
"This is the biggest problem (the President) has faced and in a certain sense he said 'It's not just my fault.' There's another side and the other side needs to take some responsibility for it, and interestingly Nikki Haley came out in her response...and said exactly that about the Republicans," she says.
3. For better politics, be better citizens:
Goren says that President Obama stress the need for citizens "to be involved...to be better citizens, to be active, to be engaged, to have principled disagreements but to not let them destroy relationships and understandings of how we operate as citizens."
Goren also points out that both the State Of The Union and the Republican Response from Nikki Haley were anti-Trump. "Parts of both Obama's speech and Haley's speech were targeted specifically with regard to the arguments that Trump is making with regard to building walls, keeping people out, anti-Muslim and sort of thinking about ways of having immigration that's not sort of retributive," she says.
