![Alejandra Pizarnik’s “[All night I hear the noise of water sobbing.]”](https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/AdobeStock_317283639.jpeg "Alejandra Pizarnik’s “[All night I hear the noise of water sobbing.]”")
Joe Biden’s Oval Office speech Wednesday, July 24th, was more powerful than those who hate him may realize. It was powerful for a simple reason: it focused on the importance of four forgotten American virtues: truth, character, decency and democracy.
It was a speech about what Joe Biden ran on in 2019, saving the soul of America. In addition, it laid out two things;
- what Biden has achieved in his three and a half years in office, and
- what he intends to achieve between now and January 20thwhen the next president of the United States is sworn in.
Biden reported that his administration had delivered nearly sixteen million new jobs and had brought manufacturing back to the United States with new chip and battery factories going up in Arizona, Texas, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, and Oregon.
His administration, Biden said, had upped wages, dialed down violent crime to its lowest level in 50 years, and had given America the fastest growing economy in the Western world.
Under his administration, Biden pointed out, more Americans had health insurance than in our nation’s history. And fewer immigrants were crossing the Southern border illegally than under the final month of former president Donald Trump.
In the coming six months, Biden said, he would “lower costs for hard-working families,” would defend “our personal freedoms…from the right to vote to the right to choose,” would fight for “Supreme Court reform,” would “call out hate and extremism,” and would make “it clear there is no place…in America for political violence.”
But let’s get back to truth, character, decency, democracy, and the soul of America. Because Biden’s speech focused on these profoundly American values, it was one of the most powerful presidential speeches I have ever heard.
Yes, Biden’s voice was hoarse and weak. Yes, Biden occasionally had trouble with enunciation. And yes, there was another issue hiding in the background, the one that Donald Trump calls “the biggest hoax in American history” and the biggest “cover-up.”
Some Republicans claim that since at least 2020 Joe Biden has been a burned out old man who had no memory and could barely put a sentence together. That belief led House Speaker Mike Johnson to demand on Tuesday July 23rd that “If Joe Biden is too weak to run for re-election, then he’s too weak to be President of the United States.” In other words, Johnson implies that Biden should be tossed out of the White House.
Is there any truth to the burned-out-old-man idea? Well, let’s take a look at three simple facts.
When Donald Trump ran for office, he claimed over and over again that he was going to pass the biggest infrastructure bill in American history. And he claimed that what he built would be as magnificent as Trump Tower. After all, before he ran for president, Donald Trump was America’s master builder. Right? But despite four “infrastructure weeks” once Trump was in office, no Trump infrastructure bill was ever passed.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, passed a massive 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill. If he was a burned out old hulk who couldn’t string two sentences together, that hulk accomplished something Donald Trump proved unable to do. Could it be that Donald Trump was outdone by a walking zombie?
Then there’s health care. Donald Trump swore that he would get rid of Obamacare and would replace it with the most astonishing health care system any of us had ever imagined. But despite a six-month effort to pass what Trump’s team called the “American Health Care Act,” no Trump health care bill was ever passed.
Again, could it possibly be that Donald Trump was outperformed on healthcare by a senile and doddering old man?
On top of all that, Donald Trump promised to bring manufacturing back to America. He didn’t exactly succeed. For example, the Foxconn plant in Wisconsin that Trump visited for a photo opportunity in 2018 has never gone into operation.
But the Biden administration passed the CHIPS Act, an act that motivated over twelve major firms–companies like Texas Instruments, Samsung, Micron and Intel–to build some of the biggest manufacturing plants for microchips and batteries anywhere in the world.
Could it be that Donald Trump was outdone by a stumbling senior citizen with barely a lick of a brain? And could that witless senior citizen have delivered Wednesday’s speech on honesty, decency, democracy, and the American soul?
References:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/us/politics/biden-speech-transcript.html
Biden Says He Will ‘Pass the Torch’ to Harris in Oval Office Address After Ending Campaign
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Howard Bloom of the Howard Bloom Institute has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. One of his eight books–Global Brain—was the subject of a symposium thrown by the Office of the Secretary of Defense including representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Psychology Today, and the Scientific American. He does news commentary at 1:06 am Eastern Time every Wednesday night on 545 radio stations on Coast to Coast AM. For more, see http://howardbloom.net.
