My Mixed Review of Biden's SOTU: Some Good Points, but He Missed an Opportunity to Connect with Men

With such a big audience, Biden had an opportunity to connect with men, but I don't think he did.

After watching the 2024 State of the Union address, my feelings on the speech are mixed. While he started confidently and strongly criticized the Jan. 6 events, spoke to major issues like reproductive rights and the economy, I believe President Biden made a strategic mistake in not appealing directly to male voters, whom he needs, particularly in the “purple” states. I like to perform a word count of certain words, which doesn’t tell you everything, but tells you something. I searched the transcription posted on the New York Times website and found the following:

I thought in general President Biden came across pretty well despite a few flubs, but unfortunately, watching through a Democratic male gender lens, I felt his neglect of male issues was obvious. The one instance of the word men was in reference to the tragic events of Oct. 7 in Israel (see below). He used the word “boys” once in reference to that same event, and again when describing the subsequent bloodshed in Gaza. So President Biden referred to men once, and boys twice, always related to the events in the Middle East.

By contrast, he highlighted many issues for women, issues which I support, too. I was especially surprised at the $12 Billion program (no small sum) for women’s health, while he didn’t mention that men now die 5.9 years earlier than women, a number that has grown steadily over recent decades. I support the well-being of everyone, and if women, despite living much longer than men, have other issues that need addressing, let’s support them. But let’s not forget about men. Why, I wonder, does he not take a balanced approach to the health of his constituents? There is a Men’s Health Caucus in Congress, and a bill drafted to create an Office of Men’s Health — why not support that too?

Diversity of Opinion

When JFK was president, he intentionally surrounded himself with people with differing points of view to get the best results. President Biden, however, has a Gender Policy Council whose mission is to focus on women and girls, but no complementary views supporting men and boys. Therefore, it’s not surprising what his policies reflect. He doesn’t seem to be fully informed about the issues faced by men and boys, he doesn’t mention them in the SOTU, and he doesn’t address them in his policies. I’ve been a part of the Coalition to Create a White House Council on Boys and Men, started by Dr. Warren Farrell, for many years. There still isn’t one.

Why It Matters

The reason this is important is that Biden should aim to get better than -8% (in other words, lose by less than 8%) with men in order to win. This is because Dems typically do well with women voters, so losing men by just a little can still easily result in a win. However, Biden is in danger of losing men by more than that, and therefore the election. See the graph below: does Biden want to be like Carter for one term, or like Bill Clinton and Obama for two? If it’s the latter, he better start paying attention to male voters. Having lost men by 8% in 2020, he fared worse than Obama (+1%) and Bill Clinton (+3%) with men in their first terms, and Democrats have a pattern of losing men. Biden can’t go much lower and expect to win. Historically, it’s never happened, hence the “Magic Number” of -8% on the graph

Data Sources: Various National Polls (see list); Data Visualization: Mark Sutton

Back to the Speech

Let’s review the spots in the speech where men’s issues weren’t brought up, and where women’s issues were brought up. And let me be clear, I support women’s issues such as women’s right to choose. The Democratic Party can and should support both men and women. But it vocally and financially supports women specifically, but not men. This speech was a perfect example of what I call the Democratic Disconnect with male voters.

Many Democrats I speak with have no idea how such a high percentage of people, especially men, don’t fall in line with the Democrats. I believe the failure to message and act for men is one reason. If Dems could get just a few percent more men, they would be so much more likely to win The White House and races in purple states. So let’s review some parts of the speech and see if you follow the pattern that jumped out at me during the SOTU.

President Biden spoke about the reproductive freedom issue with IVF, a winning issue for Democrats. I believe the vast majority of people want to allow IVF. Very smart.

President Biden then moved on to abortion referring to a woman named Kate Cox who had to get out of the state of Texas to get a life-saving abortion procedure. Here, I was pleased that his language was inclusive:

Because Texas law banned her ability to act, Kate and her husband had to leave the state to get the [sic] what she needed.

The inclusion of the husband is important, because it telegraphs that men matter. Abortion is a huge topic this election season, and this was a tragic but powerful example to share in the speech. Abortion of course most directly affects the women who are seeking one, but it affects all of us. We are all interconnected.

He then brought up women voters:

Look, in its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote the following, and with all due respect justices, “Women are not without electoral, electoral power” — excuse me — “electoral or political power.” You’re about to realize just how much you got right about that.

Clearly, clearly, those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women. But they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot. We won in 2022 and 2023, and we will win again in 2024.

This shows Biden’s 2024 strategy clearly, and it has been so in the past: focus on the female base of voters. And I agree that this part of a good overall strategy.

But men also have political power — I believe he is leaving easy votes on the table by not mentioning anything for men. This is what I call the All-Demographic Strategy. While I agree with many of Biden’s positions, I would offer the Democrats this counterpoint:

If you forget men in your policy, they will forget you in the ballot box.

Biden didn’t win in 2020 by a lot, and he is going to need the male vote as well as the women’s vote.

If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.

I support this, but what about choice for men, or other male reproductive issues such as paternity fraud? I understand he can’t hit every issue in every speech, but “the right to choose” is a woman’s right to choose, which again, I support, so let’s be clear there. The issue of male reproductive rights, however, is absent.

…more people have health insurance today than ever before.

This is a positive trend, however, he didn’t note that between 18-64 years, it is men who are significantly less likely to be covered. Why not acknowledge this and let men know he is supporting them, too?

He spoke about the economy, the Chips and Science Act, and the Infrastructure Act, as I expected, and I thought these were strong points. He spoke of an auto plant that shut down and how he supported it and the UAW — I thought this was important. Several swing states are in the Rust Belt, including Michigan. Many of the workers in these industries are men, so like last year he spoke to some male supportive issues but did not acknowledge men as a group.

A bit later, he referred to Obamacare:

Folks, the Affordable Care Act, the old Obamacare, is still a very big deal.

I supported ACA and think it’s a step in the right direction for health coverage, but the bill has been criticized for a few anti-male components. Men subsidize women’s coverage, but the opposite is not mandated in other types of insurance, like life insurance. There are some other issues with Obamacare including the fact that women’s reproductive care is covered, but men’s is not. Richard Reeves published a stunning finding that women can now get the cost of condoms covered by ACA, but men cannot! More on health:

To state the obvious, women are more than half of our population, but research on women’s health has always been underfunded. That’s why we’re launching the first-ever White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, led by Jill doing an incredible job as first lady.

Pass my plan for $12 billion to transform women’s health research and benefit millions of lives across America.

I support the well-being of everyone and wrote in an earlier post some facts about the multiple offices of women’s health that already exist. Women are more than half the population because men die 5.9 years earlier. As a man, I felt invisible here. This was the part of the speech where I suggested he also support men’s health, and of course, he didn’t even mention it at all. I feel this was an opportunity missed.

I want to expand high-quality tutoring and summer learning time and see to it that every child learns to read by third grade.

I agree with this, and education is such an important issue right now. But there was no mention of the fact that it is overwhelmingly boys who are falling behind in education. At the college level, only 40% of students are men.

Let’s continue increasing Pell Grants to working- and middle-class families…

Women receive billions more in Pell Grants each year than men. According to research from Sean Kullman of In His Words, women received $6 billion more than men in the 2015-16 academic year alone! I don’t believe that’s fair, but I share the idea that education needs to be affordable for everyone.

I loved that he used the term “shrinkflation” in a State of the Union Address. That’s got to be a first.

There were a few items where he could have mentioned men, but didn’t. Although he didn’t say it, these issues support men:

Last year, the murder rate saw the sharpest decrease in history.

This is great for everyone, of course, but men make up 78% of murder victims.

Keep building trust, as I’ve been doing by taking executive action on police reform, and calling for it to be the law of the land. Directing my cabinet to review the federal classification of marijuana and expunging thousands of convictions for the mere possession, because no one should be jailed for simply using or have it on their record.

Men are 96% of those killed by police, and 93% of federal prisoners. So these developments also help men in very important ways, though he missed the opportunity to note that.

Take on crimes of domestic violence. I am ramping up the federal enforcement of the Violence Against Women Act that I proudly wrote when I was a senator, so we can finally, finally end the scourge against women in America.

The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is an act with a gendered name and does not reflect the reality that anyone, of any gender or age, can be a victim of domestic violence. What about kids? Men are also more likely to be victims of domestic violence than is commonly known. VAWA is not an inclusive name, and it fails to take into consideration everyone. In an age of inclusivity, this sticks out as being out of touch. I also find it disappointing that he wrote the act and named it himself, and has chosen not to change the name to make it more gender- and age-inclusive.

On school shootings and gun control:

Well, I did do something by establishing the first-ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention…

He mentioned the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which seems to be most focused on responsible gun control, which I support as well. However, there is a larger point that boys and young men in particular are lonely and hurting in this country, which I believe is one of the reasons behind the shooting epidemic, and there was no sympathy mentioned for them in this speech.

Twelve hundred innocent people, women and girls, men and boys slaughtered, after enduring sexual violence.

The situation itself is one of the darkest days in recent memory. The human tragedy here is what is most important. So, it may seem minor, but I appreciate the fact that he used gender-inclusive language here in referring to the victims of the truly tragic event.

I believe he approached the minefield of the Middle East well, offering support for Gazans. He made good economic points, including the adding of manufacturing jobs. The immigration issue was a challenging part of his speech, but he correctly pointed out how Republicans refused to sign the bill they put forth, putting people in danger in order to have an issue to run on instead of working together to fix the problem.

All in all, I have a lot of respect for President Biden and understand his point of view. However, I believe strategically he and the rest of the Democrat Party do a disservice to their constituents and the party by continually neglecting boys and men and their very legitimate issues.

Looking forward: I’m going to try to see if there is any way we can get one men’s or boys’ issue onto the Democratic Party Platform this summer.