Does It Suck To Be Xi?

We made it! Through Joe Biden’s second State of the Union address on Tuesday night. The speech was full of spin and lies, as well as plenty of WTH moments. Who had a First Lady Second Gentleman who smacked their Bingo card?

Public speaking, even though it can be difficult, especially when it comes down to volume and tone, is generally easy when you have a teleprompter and a microphone, and a captive audience. Joe apparently didn’t get the memo.

China was a topic that was highly anticipated. What would Joe do about our relationship with the red dragon, given the drama surrounding their spy balloon’s American adventure and the visible middle finger of their spy? Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R.GA) seemed determined to make sure he did.

Biden eventually got to China, and it was both confounding and gaslighting. Jennifer Van Laar points out:

Biden finally mentioned China after more than an hour of his speech. But what he was leading with was a fever dream that he had stopped America’s decline and the PRC’s rise to power.

Before I was elected, the story was about China’s increasing power while America was sinking. But not anymore.

I have made it clear to President Xi that our goal is competition and not conflict.

He’s made it very clear that we don’t seek conflict.

Van Laar also points out that Joe’s notion of “competition,” is at best, distorted.

Biden continued to describe our relationship with China as a contest. Biden doesn’t know that while he has a poster of Xi Jinping up on his wall, while he struggles with a chin-up across the bar in his bedroom door, Beijing does not see him as anything but a puppet whose strings can be pulled at any time.

Joe’s distorted, naive assessment of US-China relations prompted serious head-scratching.

“Across the globe, we face serious challenges. However, democracies have grown stronger over the past two decades, and not become weaker. Not stronger, autocracies have become weaker. “Name a world leader that would change with Xi Jinping, NAME ME ONE!”

Scoldy McScoldface wiggled his finger at the audience, exhorting them to name a world leader willing to trade places with China’s President. Vice President Kamala Hari and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy managed to keep their faces impassive, but it was hard to believe that either of them was thinking about the 44th President of America…

Joe was implying that it is “sucks” to be Xi. I honestly don’t know what Joe meant. One can’t know without having to walk the mile in the shoes of another. I don’t think it’s possible to not recognize the many challenges Xi has had to face, but I do believe there are more than a few world leaders who would not say no to the chance to lead the second-largest economy in the world and the largest military.

I would like to see Biden versus Xi and believe that the former is the better of the two. Sorry to say, however, that I don’t have that confidence.