State of the disUnion showcases social divide

President John F. Kennedy said in his 1963 State of the Union Address, that “the most precious and powerful right in the world, the right to vote in a free American election, must not be denied to any citizen.” Republican congresspersons sat in  silent disagreement. A silent disagreement. It’s a bad look when the flagrant racists of history have better etiquette than you do.

The State of the Union Address has evolved into a theatrical expression of party loyalty with opposers scrambling to talk over the executive unprompted. Pauses for clapping and shameful attempts at heckling the President of the United States of America littered throughout an exhausting hour-long speech rendered the 2022 SOTU Address borderline unwatchable. Two culprits for such disruptions are Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), best known for their portrayals of the twins in blue in The Shining (1980). 

Now, I know what you’re thinking, what did budget Sarah Palin and the Wicked Witch of the East find so vitally important as to interrupt a 200+ year-old American tradition? Well, Trump’s failed attempt at a wall (yes, I know it exists, but 40% of illegal immigrants arrive by plane), of course! As Biden unveiled plans for immigration reform that would both tighten security and create an easier means of citizenship for migrants, Rep. Greene spouted the same rhetoric we’ve dreaded for six years now. I physically seized in a cringe-infused shock upon hearing that, baffled at how the highest members of our government treat its operations with such a lack of respect. I was horrified at what this once dignified tradition has evolved into, resembling more closely a baseball game with angry fanatics than the actual State of the Union Address. As much as I care about what Georgia’s 14th district has to say at this particular moment, I’d rather listen to the representative of the entirety of the nation’s plan to reform a failed system.

Surprisingly, Greene’s outburst wasn’t the most memorable or disrespectful disruptions at the event itself. President Biden began discussing his late son, Attorney General Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015, while Joe Biden was serving as Vice President. Biden spoke about specific burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are used to incinerate hazardous wastes, like jet fuel and medical supplies, and how they contributed to his son’s diagnosis and eventual death. “What could the Wonder Twins possibly have to criticize about this?” you may ask. Well, nothing, but Rep. Boebert found this a convenient time to shout “13,” a reference to the 13 US service members killed in a suicide bombing near Kabul’s international airport. This comment, of course, refuses to recognize the countless deaths which would have occurred had US troops remained stationed in Afghanistan, but that would require complex thinking skills to notice.

Boebert and Greene, despite representing some of the smallest constituencies the country has to offer, somehow managed to make their screeching voices project the loudest throughout the halls of Congress time and time again. They’re insensible, crass, disrespectful, and unAmerican in their relentless assaults on just about every solution the Biden Administration thinks up for problems which should have been resolved decades prior. Even when I set aside the unfathomable disparity between our political alignments, I can still assert with great confidence that the two of them, collectively, have never expressed an intelligent thought throughout their respective tenures. We can only hope that Georgia’s 14th and Colorado’s third district make the rational decision to condemn the unhinged “Karens of Congress” in the upcoming midterm elections.

By Hunter Willis

Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue IV

March 17th, 2022