by Matthew Continetti at The Washington Free Beacon
Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not mince words in her response to the State of the Union address on Tuesday. The Arkansas governor, just weeks into her term, blamed President Biden for appeasing the radical Left. She gave a preview of what the GOP presidential nominee will say next year.
Sanders pointed out that while she is the youngest governor in the country, Biden is the oldest president in history. She noted that while she is the first woman elected governor of the Natural State, prominent Democrats have trouble saying what a woman is. She likened Biden’s speech to a child’s tall tale and lambasted the president for his bungled response to the crisis on the southern border, for his inattention to crime, and for his delay in shooting down the Chinese spy balloon. “President Biden is unwilling to defend our border, defend our skies, and defend our people,” she said. “He is unfit to serve as commander in chief.”
Conservatives praised Sanders’s indictment of President Biden and her call for a new generation of GOP leaders. A few people said it was the best State of the Union response they’d ever heard. She cleverly framed today’s politics as a competition between normal and crazy—with the Democrats acting cray-cray. “Every day,” she said, left-wing culture warriors tell Americans that “we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols, all while big government colludes with Big Tech to strip away the most American thing there is—your freedom of speech.”
Such lines are catnip to the populist grassroots. But I’m not convinced that they will persuade the independent voters who decide elections. Governor Sanders’s punchy and well-delivered remarks followed the Republican playbook from a disappointing midterm campaign. If the GOP wants to win in 2024, its candidates will have to confront, seriously and substantively, topics that Sanders avoided: abortion and the economy.
Sanders neither mentioned nor alluded to the most significant Supreme Court…
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