War is peace; freedom is slavery; democrats are radical

Political speeches, including State of the Union ones, rarely change things.

Nonetheless, they can be useful guides to the political landscape.

On Tuesday, it was obvious that President Biden was feeling a fight.

Specifically, he hasn't stopped peppering Republicans with the suggestion that many of them pose a threat to Medicare and Social Security, which they do.

In the Republican rejoinder, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders argued that the United States is divided into two parties, one of which focuses primarily on the day-to-day issues that matter to ordinary people, while the other is obsessed with waging a culture war.

This is also true.

But Sanders got his party mixed up: Republicans, not Democrats, are the culture warriors who have lost touch with the concerns of the ordinary citizen.

Let's talk about Medicare and Social Security first.

When Biden claimed that “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to go away,” he was met with cries of “Liar!”

Yet last year, Florida Senator Rick Scott, chairman of the Republican National Senate Committee, released a "blueprint to rescue America" ​​that explicitly included as one of its amendments that "all federal legislation will expire after five years".

Yes, a program that expires can be renewed.

But what Biden said was true, and in fact, how sure can you be that the current Republican Party would vote to keep Social Security and

as they are now?

There is also the question of arithmetic.

Republicans have pledged to eliminate the budget deficit in 10 years, and unless we raise taxes, which they vehemently oppose, getting there is basically impossible without drastic cuts in

and Social Security.

And let's not forget that both are programs for seniors, programs fundamental to the long-term financial planning of Americans and the foundation on which most people's hopes for a decent and dignified retirement rest.

Putting them on the scaffold every five years, even as a possibility, would raise enormous concerns.

Hence the hysterical reaction of the Republican Party to Biden's claims.

However, those claims were entirely true.

But let's talk now about Sanders' response to the president, which was even more revealing.

The governor's speech consisted of a tirade against concerns about inequality and social discrimination, or

.

This has been the general trend of the Republicans these days and exactly what one would expect in, say, a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

But this was not an address addressed to a group of conservatives;

he was supposed to address the country as a whole and rebut the president of the United States.

So, as

's Greg Sargent points out, it was striking that Sanders spoke much of the time in the jargon of right-wing pundits.

The Republican boasted of having removed the TCR from her state, without even explaining the initials.

How many Americans know what "critical race theory" means, let alone why that's supposed to be so bad?

By the way, survey groups indicate that most people don't know what

means or why they should be afraid of it.

But wait, it's even worse.

politics

were responsible for "high gas prices" and "empty supermarket shelves."

So first of all, how does that work?

How did critical race theory cause a global rise in crude oil that sent prices up at gas stations around the world?

How did it strangle supply chains and cause a global container shortage?

Second, a politician who was actually in touch with the concerns of real people would know that the examples she used to illustrate the failures of Biden's policy are well past their expiration date.

Indeed, the price of gasoline rose for a while to around $1.3 a liter in the summer, but has since declined sharply.

Currently, my preferred measure of fuel affordability – the price of a liter of gasoline as a percentage of the median worker's weekly earnings – is about the same as the average for 2018-2019.

I don't remember Republicans howling over gas prices at the time.

And the complaint about empty shelves is even more outdated.

A year ago there was chaos in the supply chains, but since then the pressure has largely eased, and while some items are still missing ‒bird flu has contributed to egg shortages, though prices are probably falling‒ , complaints about empty shelves in supermarkets already smell musty.

Put it this way: Sanders' version of the problems facing ordinary Americans doesn't seem to be based on any direct experience from people's lives, but rather on

reporting , which exaggerates what's wrong with the US government. Biden and make no mention of when things pick up again.

For the sake of clarity, there are culture warriors on the left, and some can be annoying even to the socially liberal minded.

But few wield significant power, and certainly not governed by the Democratic Party, which is not confined to a closed mental universe, impervious to events that do not suit it, and whose inhabitants communicate using buzzwords that no one else recognizes.

Republicans, on the other hand, do live in that universe, and what Sanders showed us was that they can't get out of it, even when they should have strong political incentives to appear like normal people and pretend to care about ordinary Americans.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize Winner in Economics.

© The New York Times, 2023. Translation from News Clips

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