Commentary on Obama’s Speech to the Nation: Offensive to Republicans

The U.S. president cannot change politics anymore, so he said what he thinks and frontally addressed conservatives.

Barack Obama did not cede a millimeter to Republicans in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night.

Obama knows that the Republican majority will not adopt a single one of his proposals, such as raising taxes on high earners, paid sick time in case of illness, or the repeal of tuition fees for some students at publicly financed community colleges. And yet, he gave a combative speech, defended his own achievements, and in turn, called on the state to take a greater responsibility for the well-being of the middle class.

He spoke about climate protection and his readiness to stop every attempt from Republicans to repeal health care reform with a veto.

It all seems completely crazy in retrospect. When Obama had a Democratic majority, he tried and failed to reach a compromise with the Republicans. Now that this majority is lost, he is frontally addressing the conservatives.

The inverse would have been better, but the explanation seems fairly simple: Obama could rightly assume that the conservative wing of his own party wouldn’t have backed his liberal agenda – and in his first term, when there was a re-election, he did not have the guts to take the offensive. Now, during his last two years in the White House, it is completely irrelevant. In other words, even if he can’t do anything, he can at least say what he thinks.

With respect to the capacity of the United States government, that means first and foremost that nothing will change. Obama staked a claim on the regulation of immigration policy and granted several million undocumented immigrants protection against deportation; he initiated a turn in America’s Cuba policy; and he insisted on progress of the negotiations with Iran and wants to prevent new sanctions against the country. He can still make a difference and go down in history.

With regard to fiscal policy and the urgently necessary investment in education and infrastructure, it will fail just as it has in previous years – on these points, the president will prove to be right. That is a bit like – if the German voting system would allow it – if Navid Kermani became chancellor, but Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West had the majority in the parliament.