(Madison) In the momentum of his “State of the Union speech”, interpreted as a disguised campaign launch, Joe Biden left on Wednesday to meet the “blue collar workers” of whom he wants to be the champion.
After a pugnacious address to Congress, the American president tried to continue his momentum in Wisconsin, a northern agricultural state which he won only with difficulty against former President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. .
“My economic project is for this popular America which gets up every morning to go to work and struggles to earn a decent living,” said the 80-year-old Democrat in a training center for construction workers, surrounded by trade unionists. in helmets and work vests.
Joe Biden promised, like the day before, to defend a middle class “crushed” by decades of relocation, and to give it back its “pride”.
The president, who has not officially declared himself a presidential candidate in 2024, basically wants to address the same audience as his predecessor.
But where Donald Trump speaks of “decline”, promised him better days, a “program of reconstruction of America by and for blue collar workers”.
Joe Biden was also happy to come back to a highlight of his “State of the Union speech”.
” Liar ! »
Tuesday evening, when he accused the Republicans of wanting to abolish the minimum old age (called Social Security in the United States) and health coverage for seniors (Medicare), he was interrupted by invective from parliamentarians from the hard right, especially a “Liar!” launched by the elected Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Turning the situation around to the cheers of the Democrats, Joe Biden had joked about this sudden “conversion” of his opponents to the benefits of the welfare state.
In Wisconsin, he drove the point home.
“A lot of Republicans dream of scrapping ‘Social Security’ and ‘Medicare.’ Let me tell you that I will turn their dream into a nightmare by vetoing” any legislative attempt in this direction, he promised.
In Wisconsin, Joe Biden continued to hone what his campaign speech could be: a resolutely optimistic tone and the most concrete approach possible, with plenty of details on his past reforms and his future projects, whether ‘huge infrastructure projects or the daily hassles of consumers.
Joe Biden said he heard a commentator on television surprised that he does not talk about “important things”.
Taking the example of bank overdraft fees, which he promises to lower, this president born into a middle-class family launched: “It may not matter for the rich, but it matters for the people with whom I grew up. »
“Woke pack”
In what looks like a campaign before the campaign, Joe Biden will go to Florida on Thursday, a now majority Republican southern state popular with retirees.
He will detail his programs for seniors – showing in passing that he is ready to do battle with the hard right, of which local governor Ron DeSantis is a rising star.
Where Joe Biden plays pragmatism and optimism, the Republicans chose, at least on Tuesday evening, to respond in a darker tone, and to attack on the register of “culture wars” – these battles led by the ultra- predominantly conservative around school curricula addressing gender issues and racial inequalities.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former spokesperson for Donald Trump and officially designated to deliver the Republican “counter-speech” on Tuesday, blamed Biden for “capitulating to a ‘woke pack’ that doesn’t no longer even knows how to define what a woman is”.
Joe Biden’s speech to Congress remobilized his camp, but it is difficult to predict the impact of this great political mass, with declining television audiences, on the electorate in general.
Polls so far show that American voters want a second Biden term no more than a new Trump presidency.
