Joe Biden: "Lots of luck in your senior year."
What?
President Biden ad libbed that line when sparing with GOP hecklers unhappy with the cap on drug prices that is part of the Inflation Reduction Act.
It was a strange thing to say. When I heard him say this it struck me as a gentle taunt, but confusing and weird. He was probably telling them "fat chance." Or "knock yourself out." Or "yeah, right." I couldn't make out the meaning and I have learned later that neither can anyone else. That is why is worked so nicely for Biden.
I join most other observers in having settled on a simple frame for the State of the Union event. Biden looked unusually articulate and competent, so he surpassed expectations. His speech addressed kitchen table issues of wages, drug prices, and jobs, so his policy direction surpassed expectations also. Meanwhile, Republicans looked at their very worst. McCarthy looked helpless and the GOP caucus he leads looked uncivil. The visible ones acted like kooks. The crazy-crowd has taken over the GOP. It was affable Joe versus those hecklers. Hecklers create a tricky situation. If a speaker ignores them, the speaker looks bullied. If he confronts them, it becomes an argument among equals, and they can keep it going and take over a meeting, It can be lose lose, unless the speaker can dispatch them. If Biden had responded with direct opposition or something comprehensible, for example a direct "knock yourself out," Biden would have been responding in kind and empowering the hecklers. He dispatched them.
I wonder if I am missing something.
Incomprehensibility has its virtues. So does a chuckle. A soft answer turns away wrath.
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8 comments:
Joe Biden is the right combination of old school and hip. He is like a legend in the entertainment field. He takes a licking and keeps on ticking. What did he get caught saying in Florida? Don't f*** with Biden?
Maybe the senior year comment refers to when certain people peak in high school.
It could also mean, Good luck graduating because you are an idiot.
I assumed it had something to do with their lack of maturity, since they act like undisciplined children. His two most prominent hecklers also got their knickers in a twist over the Super Bowl. White supremacists are in high dudgeon over a black lady being allowed to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sometimes referred to as the Black national anthem. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert tweeted their outrage over the “wokeness” – removing any doubt about whether the far-white’s obsession with wokeness is racist.
I keep asking myself "Who put that chip on everybody's shoulder?"
In Freudian terms, maybe a cigar is just a cigar. How to handle a perceived insult is an art form. Like Ye we are all too eager to go Defcon 3 on someone.
In Biden's big moment he handled himself and controlled the floor, making his hecklers his reinforcers of the point he was making.
If you'll pardon a pun, now Biden is hoisting trial balloons while staying on message. A good example for our Democrat candidates to follow and not be distracted by the woke catcalls.
Biden’s “senior moment“ during his state of the union speech was a political success. 😀
I wanted Biden’s “Senior year” retort to mean: many of you hecklers are facing uncertain re-election.
I wondered what Joe Biden meant by that remark. At the time, I thought it was like your “ that they might grow up and have a senior year” idea, but thought it was kind of a non sequitur, or at least overreaction.
I can’t remember to whom he was speaking, now, though.
Pretty obvious it means ‘go f___ yourself’ from an older era when people used more creative metaphors. I like it!
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