"Buy American" -- A Bad Idea

 George F. Will at WP:

“Buy American,” like protectionism generally, can protect some blue-collar jobs — but at a steep price: A Peterson Institute for International Economics study concludes that it costs taxpayers $250,000 annually for each job saved in a protected industry. And lots of white-collar jobs are created for lawyers seeking waivers from the rules. And for accountants tabulating U.S. content in this and that, when, say, an auto component might cross international borders (U.S., Canadian, Mexican) five times before it is ready for installation in a vehicle.

In the usual braying-and-pouting choreography of the State of the Union evening, members of the president’s party leap ecstatically when he praises himself, and members of the other party respond sullenly, by not responding. This year, however, something unusual happened when President Biden vowed to “require all construction materials used in federal infrastructure projects to be made in America.” A bipartisan ovation greeted his promise to reduce the purchasing power of tax dollars spent on infrastructure projects by raising the cost of materials.

State of the Union: Reading Level

From the School of Information at UC Berkeley:

Reading Level of State of the Union Addresses

Using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability test1, datascience@berkeley collected the grade level of each presidents’ first State of the Union address.

Reading Level of State of the Union Addresses

President	Party	Year	Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
Donald J. Trump	Republican	2018	8.1
Barack Obama	Democrat	2010	8.7
George W. Bush	Republican	2002	9.8
Bill Clinton	Democrat	1994	8.9
George Bush Sr.	Republican	1990	9.0
Ronald Reagan	Republican	1982	11.1
James Carter, Jr.	Democrat	1978	9.8
Gerald Ford	Republican	1975	10.9
Richard Nixon	Republican	1970	10.8
Lyndon B. Johnson	Democrat	1964	11.4
John F. Kennedy	Democrat	1961	12.8
Dwight D. Eisenhower	Republican	1953	12.4
Harry S. Truman	Democrat	1946	12.7
Franklin D. Roosevelt	Democrat	1934	15.5
Herbert Hoover	Republican	1929	14.5
Calvin Coolidge	Republican	1923	10.9
Warren Harding	Republican	1921	14.7
Woodrow Wilson	Democrat	1913	15.6

Transcripts: https://presidency.ucsb.edu/sou.php

1The Flesch-Kincaid readability tests are designed to indicate how difficult a passage in English is to understand.↑

State of the Union Audience

Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history. @FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 1, 2018

John Wagner at WP:

That number matched a figure released by Nielsen based on viewership on 12 broadcast networks and cable channels.

But it was smaller than those who watched Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last year (48 million) and smaller than those who watched former President Obama’s first State of the Union address in 2010 (48 million) and smaller than those who watched Obama’s joint session speech in 2009 (52 million).

The Nielsen numbers do not include data on streaming, which has significantly grown in popularity in recent years. But the figure Trump cites for Tuesday’s viewership does not include streaming data, which is difficult to measure.

State of the Union

Lloyd Green at The Hill:

President Trump’s first State of the Union aimed for national unity, but will likely leave America as divided as it was before he delivered his speech. Nearly 60 percent of the country believes it is headed in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, the continued downward slope of unemployment has not made our politics any less acrid. Nor has the running of Wall Street’s bulls drowned out the footsteps of Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into the Oval Office and those closest to Donald Trump.

Tuesday night, the president attempted to speak to the country as a whole, but if past is prelude, the divides will remain. Indeed, after the speech, Trump left no doubt about that, caught on a hot mic saying that he would definitely release the Devin Nunes memo.

Social Media and the State of the Union

At The Wall Street Journal, former Obama campaign spokesperson Stephanie Cutter writes:

In 2010, more than 48 million people watched the State of the Union address. But Americans increasingly get their content online, not on television. The average American watched six fewer hours of live TV per month in 2014 than he or she did in 2013—and twice as many households are now “broadband only,” meaning they don’t subscribe to cable.

Rather than fight the inevitable, the Obama administration has adapted–and used a variety of social media platforms to outline the president’s major State of the Union proposals in advance.

It was a shrewd way to take the president’s agenda directly to the platforms where people get their information, unfiltered, and reach the communities that care the most about specific issues.

That’s why senior adviser Valerie Jarrett took to LinkedIn to announce the president’s renewed push for paid sick days and family leave—directly reaching affected employees and telling employers that the administration means business.

To explain the administration’s proposal to improve and expand access to broadband, President Barack Obama taped a video on an iPad from the Oval Office and posted it Upworthy, the Web site popular with millennials.

The White House put out an "enhanced" version of the State of the Union.  Philip Bump appraises it in comparison with GOP messages.

At The Washington Post, Caitlin Dewey offers a brief history of the president's use of online media. 

Declining Success Rate on State of the Union

A release from Dominican University of California:

Dominican University of California political scientist Alison Howard and colleague Donna Hoffman, an associate professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa, have released new data examining how many of the legislative requests President Obama made in his 2014 State of Union Address were adopted by Congress.

Hoffman and Howard developed a tool to assess a president’s success by calculating how many of the legislative requests presidents make of Congress in their State of Union Address get adopted in the next session. Modern presidents (presidents since 1965) include specific calls for Congressional action in their State of the Union Address, with a median of 31 requests per address. President Clinton holds the record for most requests - 87 requests in 2000. President Obama requests range from 21 in 2009 to 45 in 2010 and 41 in 2013. In 2014 Obama made 29 requests.

President Obama’s median full and partial request success rate was about 45 percent during his first term - practically identical to Ronald Reagan’s full terms in office and slightly above the median yearly rate of 43 percent. However, he has seen his success rate decline since the Republicans took control of the House in 2011. In 2012, his full and partial success rate was 21.4%. In 2013 only two of his legislative requests were enacted by Congress for a success rate of 4.9%. In 2014 he fared slightly better, with 13.8% of requests fully successful and 17.2% of requests either fully or partially successful.

Howard and Hoffman have spent the past decade studying how presidents use the State of the Union Address to communicate with the public and request legislation of Congress.

In their book Addressing the State of the Union, Hoffman and Howard explored how and why the State of the Union Address came to be a key tool in the exercise of presidential power. They outline ways presidents use it to gain attention, to communicate with target audiences, and to make specific policy proposals.

In their 2012 paper “Obama in Word and Deeds,” which appeared in Social Science Quarterly, Hoffman and Howard examined how President Barack Obama used the State of the Union Address during his first term, noting both differences and similarities between Obama and his predecessors.

The State of the Union Address: Meh!

Will the State of the Union address make any political difference? Nope, says Gene Healy at The Washington Examiner:

The few enduring lines from past SOTUs stick out for irony value (Bill Clinton in 1996: “the era of big government is over”); because they herald a looming policy disaster (George W. Bush in 2002: “Axis of Evil”) -- or for the rare outbreak of candor (Gerald Ford in 1975: “the state of the union is not good”).

But most years, the speech gets submerged in the churn of the news cycle, little noted and not long remembered. It’s unlikely that 2014 will be any different. In its modern form, the SOTU is a meaningless ritual that rarely even does the president — let alone the public — any good.

That's bad news for a chief executive whose chief talent is speechifying. “I have a gift, Harry,” then-Sen. Obama unhumblebragged to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., some years ago, in the afterglow of a well-received speech. But according to the polling data and the political science research, it's a gift that won't keep on giving.

“There is overwhelming evidence that presidents, even ‘great communicators,' rarely move the public in their direction,” writes George C. Edwards III, a presidential scholar at Texas A&M University. “Going public does not work.” In a 2013 analysis of SOTU polling, Gallup found that “most presidents have shown an average decrease in approval of one or more points between the last poll conducted before the State of the Union and the first one conducted afterward.”

A Critical View of State of the Union Speeches

George Will deplores the practice of delivering the State of the Union as a speech instead of a written message:

When the Founding generation was developing customs and manners appropriate to a republic, George Washington and John Adams made the mistake of going to Congress to do their constitutional duty of informing and recommending. Jefferson, however, disliked the sound of his voice — such an aversion is a vanishingly rare presidential virtue — and considered it monarchical for the executive to lecture the legislature, the lofty instructing underlings. So he sent written thoughts to Capitol Hill, a practice good enough for subsequent presidents until Wilson in 1913 delivered his message orally, pursuant to the progressives’ belief in inspirational and tutelary presidents.

It is beyond unseemly, it is anti-constitutional for senior military officers and, even worse, Supreme Court justices to attend these political rallies where, with metronomic regularity, legislators of the president’s party leap to their feet to whinny approval of every bromide and vow. Members of the other party remain theatrically stolid, thereby provoking brow-furrowing punditry about why John Boehner did not rise (to genuflect? salute? swoon?) when Barack Obama mentioned this or that. Tuesday night, the justices, generals and admirals, looking as awkward as wallflowers at a prom, at least stayed seated.

In any case, the speech is no longer meeting the Wilsonian goal of swaying public opinion, because the public is not watching.  Constitution Daily reports:

The final TV viewership numbers are in for President Obama’s State of the Union speech, and the broadcast hit a historic low in one of two key ratings categories.

Nielsen says the State of the Union was seen by 33.5 million people, which is the lowest number since 2000 and the second-lowest total since 1993, when the agency first started combined measuring for the event.

The combined rating for the 2013 speech was 21.5, which is the lowest in history. President Bill Clinton’s speech in 2000 had a rating of 22.4. The rating number represents the percentage of possible households that have TV sets and could watch the speech.

In other words, nearly 80 percent of American households skipped watching the State of the Union live or on a tape-delayed basis on TV.

Citizenship, God, Federalism, and the State of the Union

Previous posts have discussed rhetoric and the State of the Union. In his address last night, the president emphasized the role of citizenship:

We should follow the example of a police officer named Brian Murphy. When a gunman opened fire on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and Brian was the first to arrive, he did not consider his own safety. He fought back until help arrived and ordered his fellow officers to protect the safety of the Americans worshiping inside, even as he lay bleeding from 12 bullet wounds. And when asked how he did that, Brian said, "That's just the way we're made."

That's just the way we're made. We may do different jobs and wear different uniforms, and hold different views than the person beside us. But as Americans, we all share the same proud title -- we are citizens. It's a word that doesn't just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we're made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations, that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter of our American story.

Thank you. God bless you, and God bless these United States of America.

The reference to God is a standard American practice, but when Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper once closed a speech by saying "God Bless Canada," a controversy ensued.

Also note the phrase "these United States."  Nearly a hundred years ago, a historian noted that it had already become archaic, since Americans had long adopted the habit of referring to the United States as a single unit.  Nevertheless, it still crops up in political rhetoric from time to time.

State of the Union: Historical Perspective

Tonight, the president delivers the annual State of the Union address. At The American Presidency Project Gerhard Peters writes:

A seemingly well-established misconception found even in some academic literature, is that the State of the Union is an orally delivered message presented to a joint session of Congress. With only a few exceptions, this has been true in the modern era (ca. 1933-present, see Neustadt or Greenstein), but beginning with Jefferson's 1st State of the Union (1801) and lasting until Taft's final message (1912), the State of the Union was a written (and often lengthy) report sent to Congress. Although Federalists Washington and Adams had personally addressed the Congress, Jefferson was concerned that the practice of appearing before the representatives of the people was too similar to the British monarch's ritual of addressing the opening of each new Parliament with a list of policy mandates, rather than "recommendations." This changed in 1913. Wilson believed the presidency was more than a impersonal institution; that instead the presidency is dynamic, alive, and personal (see Tulis). In articulating this philosophy, Wilson delivered an oral message to Congress. Health reasons prevented Wilson from addressing Congress in 1919 and 1920, but Harding's two messages (1921 and 1922) and Coolidge's first (1923) were also oral messages. In the strict constructionist style of 19th Century presidents, Coolidge's remaining State of the Unions (1924-28) and all four of Hoover's (1929-32) were written. Franklin D. Roosevelt established the modern tradition of delivering an oral State of the Union beginning with his first in 1934. Exceptions include Truman's 1st (1946) and last (1953), Eisenhower's last (1961), Carter's last (1981), and Nixon's 4th (1973). In addition, Roosevelt's last (1945) and Eisenhower's 4th (1956) were technically written messages although they addressed the American people via radio summarizing their reports. Any research design should recognize these facts.

PBS compares the state of the union in 1913 -- the year in which Wilson revived the oral version -- and 2013:

The State of the Union: 1913 vs. 2013 infographic by amccartney.

Lobbying on the State of the Union

A number of posts have discussed the president's annual State of the Union address. The Washington Post  reports:

Every year, interest groups and individuals lobby the White House to get their pet policy issues or coveted causes mentioned in the State of the Union address. And every year, the president, his speechwriters and policy advisers have to decide which agenda items merit a paragraph or sentence, a shout-out or some extra-special form of recognition. This year, gun-control advocates are likely to have the spotlight.
...

While any one line in a State of the Union speech may not seem to be a matter of critical importance, Bush’s 2003 speech — and the brouhaha that resulted from the inclusion of the now-infamous “16 words” alleging that Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium from Niger — is a reminder of the consequences that even a single sentence can have.

Interest groups say they pursue a scattershot strategy as they lobby to get their issues in the speech.

“What we try to do is get our priorities in front of as many people as possible so that you start creating some kind of echo effect,” said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO).

Depending on the focus of the organization, the typical channels might include the Office of Public Engagement, the Domestic Policy Council or the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, as well as Cabinet secretaries and departments dedicated to specific issues, such as the Council on Environmental Quality and the Council of Economic Advisers.

Grading the State of the Union

Australian radio interviewed American political scientist Peverill Squire of the University of Missouri about the president's State of the Union address:

PEVERILL SQUIRE: I think he earned a good solid B. I don't think it was an exceptional speech.

JANE COWAN: Peverill Squire is a professor of political science at the University of Missouri.

PEVERILL SQUIRE: Well I think he managed to avoid going into great detail which tends to lose his audience and I think he spoke in some fairly broad terms about the challenges we face and I think it was in that sense a fairly honest speech.

JANE COWAN: Did the president go into enough detail though to be credible on cutting the deficit? He didn't say exactly how that would be done.

PEVERILL SQUIRE: I don't think any American politician right now has much credibility on the details of cutting the budget deficit.

I think both parties are talking in very general terms because they want to avoid the unpleasantness that comes with making specific cuts.

So I think he probably did about as well as he could. You know talking about a freeze on a small portion of the budget is probably sufficiently painful that it begins to get people's attention.

The New Foundation

Presidents often repeat language and themes from their predecessors. For instance, The New York Times reports that President's State of the Union address will speak of a "new foundation" for the country. "The New Foundation" was the theme of President Carter's 1979 State of the Union.