RUTHFULLY YOURS

But he made the dreadful political mistake of comparing Russia’s threat to democracy with the threat to democracy at home. There is no comparison between Vladimir Putin’s invasion and partisan, even raucous debates in the U.S., and many supporters of Ukraine will resent the linkage. We regret to say it, but this speech may have made it harder for GOP Members of Congress to resist Donald Trump and vote to send weapons to Ukraine. Was the short-term partisan adrenaline rush worth that risk?

Given the foreign threats to democracy, Mr. Biden could have made a bipartisan pitch to increase defense spending. Even Jimmy Carter made that pivot in the final year of his Presidency when the Soviets were on the march. But Mr. Biden wants to spend and spend on everything else instead. This could turn out to be a historic miscalculation as the threats from Iran, Russia and China mount.

The speech was downhill from there, with a list of partisan campaign themes that hewed hard to the left, while framing opposition as ill-intended and out to hurt the country.

He demeaned the Supreme Court on abortion, suggesting its decision overturning Roe v. Wade was partisan and political. The truth is that the Dobbs decision, as correct as it was under the Constitution, has been a political boon to Democrats. But he still trashed the Court, and the Justices in attendance a few rows in front of him had to sit stoically and take it.

His political enemies list was long, and far more than Mr. Trump. There were the 1,000 billionaires who don’t pay enough taxes, the drug companies that care nothing for patients, the credit-card companies that want to gouge consumers, the “big landlords who break antitrust laws by price-fixing” and drive up rents, and more. He even hauled out the carcass of the National Rifle Association for a drubbing

He sneered at Republicans who voted against his spending bills but whose states now are receiving some of the federal largesse: “If any you don’t want that money in your district, just let me know.” On the border-security bill and fentanyl, it was a schoolyard taunt: “You don’t want to do that, huh?”

He said Republicans want to cut Social Security in order to cut taxes for the rich. But Republicans have expressly refused to get anywhere close to reforming entitlements in this Congress, despite the urgent need to fix programs that will soon be bankrupt.

Israel also came in for a lecture about morality and civilians, a more forceful reproof than he gave Hamas. This was an attempt to pacify his party’s anti-Israel left in Dearborn, Mich., and elsewhere. But it may have consequences on the ground in the Middle East, where adversaries will wonder about the U.S. commitment to our best ally in the region.

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There is much in the speech to critique on policy, and to correct on the potted history of his Presidency, but policy wasn’t his point on Thursday. This was a campaign rally disguised as a State of the Union, as Democrats chanted “four more years.”

No doubt it was an attempt to rally Democrats who fret that he’s been too passive, or to show voters who worry about his age that he can sound tough. Thus the near-shouting delivery. But we wonder how effective it will be as a campaign message.

There was nothing here for Nikki Haley voters, or Republicans who don’t want a second Trump term and might consider voting for Mr. Biden. In its divisiveness, it could have the effect of encouraging the No Labels movement to go ahead with a third-party candidacy. Every bit as much as Donald Trump, the Joe Biden in the well of the House on Thursday promised four more years of dispiriting rancor.