Katie Britt's America Sounds Scary, But Not as Scary as Her
By: Ed Kilgore (Intelligencer)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The big story of the 2024 State of the Union address was Joe Biden's aggressive, upbeat delivery in defending his presidency and blasting "my predecessor" (13 times, reportedly). But a secondary story that is probably already capturing the attention of delighted comedians and horrified elocution teachers was Alabama Senator Katie Britt's official SOTU response for the Republican Party. To mention a less important impression first, her more than 17-minute speech was very long for this sort of thing, apparently because Britt took a prepared text and added some insta-reactions to Biden's address. But pasted together or not, the speech was uniformly strange.
The substance, so to speak, was right from the Donald Trump American Carnage repertoire, treating the condition of the country as a vast hellscape of rampaging immigrants, blighted communities, and terrified, impoverished families.
Here is the story she told during a very long, very drawn out section on border policies:
When I first took office, I did something different. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped. The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoebox of a room, and they sent men through that door, over and over again, for hours and hours on end.
We wouldn't be okay with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America, and it's past time we start acting like it. President Biden's border crisis is a disgrace. It's despicable. And it's almost entirely preventable.
Soon after, she recounted meeting a man in his 70s who said he needed to take job at a gas station after retiring in order to afford his medication. People facing a choice between food and medicine has long been a bromide of left-wing populist politics, now appropriated by Britt.
She didn't shirk from right-wing golden oldies, either: "For years, the left has coddled criminals and defunded the police — all while letting repeat offenders walk free." What any of this has to do with Joe Biden was left unclear. But she left the real burst of cliches for the climax of her remarks:
Just ask yourself, are you better off now than you were three years ago?
There is no doubt we're at a crossroads. We all feel it. But here's the good news: we the People are still in the driver's seat. We get to decide whether our future will grow brighter, or whether we settle for an America in decline.
If Britt's speech was alternatively lurid and banal, it was the delivery that really grabbed you, and not in a good way. Watch the high-school Shakespearean drama with which he makes this indictment of Biden's China policies:
And here she is expressing Republican empathy with families in a way that suggests an attempt at hypnotism:
Like she was auditioning for a soap opera role that required a broad range of over-the-top emotions, Britt went from weepy to furious to gleeful to solemn, and executed abrupt changes in pitch and volume.
What's odd is that I am almost certain that Britt is very smart; she was a Senate chief of staff and president of her state's top business lobby before running for office. Her colleagues on both sides of the aisle seem to like and respect her. But on Thursday night, she came across as perhaps the less impressive of the two Alabama senators — and her colleague is Tommy Tuberville.
Perhaps like Bobby Jindal, the Louisiana wonder-boy who bombed in his State of the Union response to Barack Obama in 2009, Britt felt the need to talk down to her audience, or maybe she was over-coached. At one point, she said "the American Dream has turned into a nightmare." Personally, I fear I will encounter Katie Britt in my nightmares, whispering "we see you" until I wake up screaming.
Tags
Who is online
61 visitors
her delivery was so weird and unsettling it totally outweighed whatever it was she was saying
haven't seen anything with her yet, but damn, what country does she and so many complainers actually come from, because it's not THESE United States !
The presentation was so bad that I don’t think anyone can tell you what she was actually trying to say. Definitely a situation where the message is totally lost, rightly or wrongly, due to the way it was conveyed.
You are partly right. She was an amateur trying to dramatize something that didn't need any drama. The crisis speaks for itself. She only needed to list it: open borders, inflation, crime, corruption, wokeism and weakness abroad.
I am 100% right.
I'd bow from the ankles, but I have a few errands to run.
We have Tommy Tuberville, and they are both from Alabama...LOL
MAGA are miserable since their Daddy Trump got whooped. As for me? I am an order of magnitude better off than three years ago...
Plagiarizing from another member here?
How so? Do you have a source for gas, groceries and heating you are willing to share?
lol …. Britt made Biden look like the angry grandpa he is.
Sad …..
I guess biden's not senile anymore.
That shit sure turned on a dime
Cool, then he should have no problem debating Trump a few times.
Right?
So, we can definitely guess that you haven't read or listened to any of her presentation have you?
Non answer noted.
See what the "spin doctors" did? They did not miss a beat to turning to "Angry grandpa" and they are 'all' in-synch proliferating it - this is all the evidence we need to verify that MAGAs don't intend to play it honest or 'straight.'
If you want to read spin, look no further than many of your own comments.
Spin city baby, spin city …..
I don't do 'projection' from others. So you can keep it.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that …
You keep projecting and I will keep calling it out.
Well, then there is this:
So, you're saying that in addition to being an overactor in a class with Jim Carrey, she's also a liar?
Say it ain't so!
Or stand for a trial
He won’t do a free flowing debate. He’s not capable and the left knows it.
I'm sure that if he is sitting with an interviewer...normally a fluff interview with a leftist source, he has handlers in the background when things begin to get out of hand ready to shut things down.
Or gets fed the questions days in advance
Wow. This is too much denial. Just unreal.
Holy cow, I agree. Denial city baby!
Your comments prove that in spades.
But if I said "It ain't so!"...then they're be two liars!
She looked like she had no idea what she was doing. If that were a job interview I would have stopped it after the second question. She was fucking terrible and trying to pretend otherwise is just pure desperation on your part.
Sad.
She did fine. Intimating differently is the really sad thing.
You just didn’t like what she said.
Nothing more.
That isn't accurate, Sparty many Republicans are not happy with her performance at all.
I would say you have low standards, but if that was “fine” in your book then standards appear to be nonexistent for you.
The nicest thing you could say about her speech is that it was bizarre.
Same to you friend.
Senator Katie Britt puts me in mind of Alyssa Milano. . . doing humane dog ads. No offense to Ms. Milano. The 'whining' is over the top. She says, "Stop the suffering. . . ." and the whole thing comes off sounding like Negative Nancy sulking. She's patronizing the public and gaslighting it.
I will give Ms. Britt one thing: She 'gives' a good copy read. Hollywood might should invite her for a screen test!
And where ever do these republicans and rural citizens get the notion that cities can afford to "live" as they do?
I thought she sounded like a weird cross between Michelle Duggar and Sally Strothers. I had to stop listening before my blood sugar got too high.
I did jump forward to a part where she blamed Biden for the cost of child care. Um, when has affordable child care ever been a part of the GOP platform?
I actually listened to this video in its entirety this morning after posting it here, as I could not take the 'dramatic reading' last night. Especially after the 'high' of listening to President Biden. . . and yes, this president has trouble with running words together and/or cutting their 'ends' off
But there was a line from the president's speech that will stick with me: "My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation, isn't t how old we are, it's how old are our ideas are. . . hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas, but you can't lead America with ancient ideas. . . they can only take us back. . . to lead America you need a vision for the future for what can and should be done."
Senator Britt could not touch that right there!
When has child care been a part of the Dem/Lib platform?? Of course - as soon as the Repubs make any mention of it.
Yup - "serving" (and I use that word very, very, very loosely) "the people" for 53 years - is giving us a future we can look forward to??????
Yeah, that's just not true, 1st.
Sure - gimme Lib/Dem propaganda sources to provide your truth? From a Dec. 2023 speech that neglects to explain WHY they can't get that $16B (wow - almost as much as we give to Israel) because their priorities are Ukraine/Israel/Egypt/Yemen.
Care to explain to "the people" why Ukraine/Israel/Egypt/Yemen carry more importance than Child Care Joey???
Not gonna happen.
The Hill is not liberal propaganda, and there is nothing factually wrong in the second link. Dems introduced legislation to fund child care. Your knee-jerk "nuh uh!" is not a refutation, nor is your deflection to foreign aid.
Actually it was Nixon that killed child care over 40 years ago. It was a bi-partisan measure that was funded by Congress.
The U.S. ranks third to last among OECD countries on public spending on family benefits . That we lack anything resembling a 21 st century family policy is not an oversight. It is not because American society refuses to come to grips with the reality of working mothers. Rather, it is the result of a political hijacking so fabulously successful it wiped away virtually any trace of its own handiwork.
You can continue to be negative. . .you can do that. . .you can pretend that just 'mouthing words' to discount, discredit, and disagree-even as you have your preference for the GOP-or, you can choose to write the truth even when it is or feels inconvenient.
As you well know by now, or should know, Ms. Britt's talking points are just a collection of complaints-real, stale, and/or imagined. I won't take time or even bother to be interested in disputing them overlong.
You just don't know how happy that will make me and many others.
Please don't.
Sandy - you may disagree - that is your option.
However, my "nuh uh" response and your opinion of what a deflection is are in your favor as they are your opinions.
There are plenty of other sources with the information I mentioned - you chose yours and I'll chose mine.
[deleted]
Odd that you haven't posted any of those sources to back up your opinion. I posted facts. You post poorly supported opinion and deflection, and then double down.
Thank you for whatever 'concern' you are expressing (I guess).
You should ask "First" about it-not me. And for the record, these matters are degrees different. Just pointing that out!
Well for the record, you are wrong ….. again.
Ask 'First' and stop being obsessive.
Stop projecting ….
Apparently you need to 'win' something. So: "You 'win!' (and can STOP now!)
Wrong again and if you want to stop, you have the power to do so. Just stop.
No passive aggressive nonsense required.
You could stop too. After all, this has not been much of any kind of anything for some time now. And you don't 'get' to control me, nevertheless. Furthermore, who cares about being passive-aggressive. . . it is a 'vehicle' that does not make victims out of 'anybody.' I suggest not taking/making it a problem.
That said, I was not being passive-aggressive with you, per se. I really think you should talk to somebody you can "agree" with about something they dropped into this discussion. . . not focus all your energy on someone indirectly commenting about something another individual wrote "First."
Amazing …. You still haven’t made the connection. Hilarious.
The end.
Okay …..
According to her, we are headed to hell in a handbasket....
I don't see that but then I'm not a politician.
She made her debut in her added role as a "Negative Nancy." And it might have received a better reception. . .but for the histrionics! (Delivered "perfectly," nevertheless!) The country is not going to hell in a handbasket. . . we have great job numbers and unemployment is low. Murder rates are down. And, their are fewer national examples of shootings for us to discuss!
Katie has delivered far better speeches than the tear-jerk Jean D'Arc trollop her team of puppet masters invented for her. She would do well to take them all out back for a lead bbq. The only thing rebuttal speeches are remembered for is how bad they were. Katie, get out of that kitchen before it sterilizes you.
I’m pretty sure that Republicans used ChatGPT to compose a melodrama in the halting style of Tom Selleck selling a reverse mortgage, and handed it to her with a death threat if she didn’t follow the script.
I finally just saw the actual footage, and holy shit. That was bad, like REALLY bad. There is no positive spin you can throw on it, that was just an AWFUL presentation. She seriously looked like she had absolutely no idea what facial expressions go with what emotions, or what you should be upset or happy about. I did a better acting job in my 6th grade play.
The SNL skits write themselves these days.
Scarlett Johansson as usual did a great job.