The president is going to lie to us. That should be the takeaway from tonight’s State of the Union address before a joint session of the Congress. 

Actually, there’s another – we’ll like it. 

Yet another – we’d be mad if he didn’t.

Instead, there will be pernicious heehawing by the newsspeakers and opiniontalkers about Joe Biden’s intentions for reelection, his relationship with the House Republicans, his legislative agenda over the next two years, and other things that won’t matter in a few weeks. 

The last time there was anything meaningful about the State of the Union was the last time a president told us the truth. It’s no coincidence, I think, that the last president to do that was the only one who was never elected.

“Biden faces torn political landscape,” USA Today’s frontpage said today. “President will address freshly divided Congress and skeptical voters.”

Un-hun.

That these things won’t matter in a few weeks is in keeping with the State of the Union’s general meaninglessness. No policy has in my lifetime been informed or influenced by the president’s rhetorical prowess. No partisan reaction has in my lifetime informed or influenced his decisionmaking. No “media narrative” about the State of the Union has ever survived a couple three days.

The last time the State of the Union was meaningful was the last time a president told us the truth. It’s no coincidence, I think, that the last president to do that was the only one who was never elected.

In his 1975 address, President Gerald Ford, who became vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned before becoming president after Richard Nixon resigned, said that the state of the union “was not good.”

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We didn’t expect it.

We didn’t like it.

The next year he was out.

So presidents are particular about the truth, which is to say, particular about lying. The union is always good, they say. It’s always strong, they say. It is always [put-sunny-affirming-adjective-here]. They say this even when a preponderance of the evidence says otherwise.

We expect it. 

We like it.

We’d be mad if he didn’t.

I don’t mean only fascists allergic to suggesting the US is anything but the best best best ever ever ever. I mean liberals, too. While “conservatives” can wallow in the negative – because to be conservative is to be negative – liberals can’t, especially white liberals. They must believe in the triumph of the human spirit. Same for America.

So presidents say the union is good, strong, sunny affirming adjective.

To be sure, Biden has much to crow about. Though a majority doesn’t know what he and the congressional Democrats have done in two years, fact remains the economy is booming. It’s invisible, because the very obscenely rich are not reaping most gains, but make no mistake.

It’s booming. 

The Post’s EJ Dionne even said Biden is a revolutionary. “The middle-of-the-road lover of compromise, consensus-building and comity, is a revolutionary — Ronald Reagan in reverse, if you will. He’s turning the nation away from the economic assumptions that took hold in the 1980s” (my italics). He said Biden is the leader of a “quiet revolution.”

He’s right.

But a booming economy isn’t a union.

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The union hasn’t been strong since at least the time of Reagan and those “economic assumptions that took hold in the 1980s.” For 40 years, the Republicans starved and gavaged the government, depending on what it was used for. If it’s domestic programs and services for normal people, sorry, we’re broke. If it’s for the Pentagon, no worries. There’s no limit to the amount of force-feeding of that oh-so-golden goose. 

That was GOP hegemony.

Instead of a government of, by and for the people, it was a government of, by and for “the right kind of people” – and it was readily understood that “the right kind of people” was never Black or brown. In the last two years, however, Biden and the Democrats have taken steps to overthrow the old order. They have been revolutionaries, in effect.

But they’ve been quiet about it.

From the Republicans’ first attempt at sabotaging the first Black president, via the debt ceiling, to the Republicans’ second attempt at sabotaging the current “revolutionary” president, again via the debt ceiling — not to mention, yanno, defending a criminal former president’s failed overthrow of the government — the true state of the union should be clear. It will never be strong, good or sunny affirming adjective as long as the Republican Party doesn’t want it to be.

Biden will never say so.

He has to lie.

That should be the takeaway, but it won’t be. 

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