President Joe Biden gave his first State of the Union Address last Tuesday, and it was very typical. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t exactly amazing. Biden followed a formula that has become familiar over the years: reviewing the major points of the president’s agenda through rose-tinted glasses. The State of the Union is becoming less an accurate description of the challenges and successes of the past year than a campaign speech given well ahead of election season. 

Biden attempted to add emotion to the address, adding some memorable comments about the conflict in Ukraine and some potentially controversial ones distancing himself from the Defund the Police campaign, which is popular with the left wing of the Democratic Party. For the most part, though, the speech was nothing special (which is probably why it wasn’t  really part of national news coverage for more than a day). 

This formulaic, boring nature of the modern State of the Union is tragic. The Address could be a display of powerful oratory about the true condition of our nation. It could give an issue that matters to the American people the time and depth of analysis that it deserves, not just spending two minutes reviewing the talking points of every issue the president ran on. 

The State of the Union Address could be something to look forward to and something to remember. It could provide meaningful reflection on the actual state of our complicated union, if only the president were to decide to break from the mediocrity that the annual speech has become.