Biden sounds a note of COVID optimism, but was it enough?

President Biden.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

President Biden had much to cover in his State of the Union address tonight – an increasingly brutal Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, inflation, prescription drug prices, the opioid crisis and more. But for the sake of Democrats everywhere, Biden needed to project a note of optimism about the issue that is dragging his presidency down: the never-ending COVID-19 pandemic.

And while the president hinted that the tide of America's struggle with the virus had turned, it should have played a more central and more forceful role in his address.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.