The year’s response to the recent State of the Union address can only be described as Handmaid-esque in nature and has received quite a response from people from all walks of life including Democrats, Republicans, and Centrists. Overall, the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative as Katie Britt seemed to over-perform her response.
Britt’s performance was chilling from her fake smile which seemed to take inspiration from Florida governor Ron DeSantis. The fake kitchen set a sexist traditional undertone and the focus of the speech switched too rapidly to be coherent – one minute Britt speaks about the soul of America and the next about how America is living a nightmare, then transitioning back to a seductive flirty tone. Later in the speech, Britt attempted to make the audience feel like they were not doing enough to save the soul of good ole’ America.
Throughout the speech, the tonal shifts and facial expressions made it difficult to understand the focus and what Americans were supposed to take away from it.
The speech starts off with her echoing the sentiment that she is personally inviting the audience into her home and her children’s home saying she is worried about her children’s lives and the lives of other children around America. Then, Britt says there is a crisis in America and that President Biden just doesn’t get it, that he is out of touch under his administration and real families are worse off. Britt communicates all of this with weird fake facial expressions looking like a character straight out of the movie “Smile”. Her appearance along with her presence in the kitchen comes off as fake and disingenuous.
Britt then explains her reasoning for being in the kitchen as it is a place where “real families are facing around the table just like this one” harkening back to the kitchen being a traditional bastion of good ol’ family values and she would know that because she’s a Mom and a women which we all know “belong in the kitchen”. Also saying “[the kitchen] where our family has tough conversations it’s where we make hard decisions it’s where we share the good the bad and the ugly, of our days it’s where we laugh, love…It’s where we pray for god’s guidance”. She ends her intro by stating: “Tonight the American family has to have a tough conversation because the truth is we’re all worried about the future of our nation, the country we know, and love, seems to be slipping away.”
Britt attempts to sell the idea that we’re really all one happy, big American family and we need to discuss the soul of our country. I get what she’s trying to say and this comes across as genuine for her base. No matter how hard Britt tries, she will never be a relatable person as she is the same career politician she criticizes Biden for being. While she is the newly appointed Junior Senator from Alabama, the fact is that her entire career has been in the trenches of politics, first serving as a staffer for Senator Richard Shelby and moving up to the position she holds now.
The first portion of her speech had a strange “Shining”-esque sense to it as it felt like Britt was a second from pulling out an axe and screaming about how she would do whatever it took to defend children from Joe Biden’s policies. Senator Tommy Tuberville reportedly stated: “She was picked as a housewife, not just a senator—somebody who sees it from a different perspective…. I mean, she did what she was asked to do. I thought she did a good job. And it’s hard when you’ve never done anything like that.”
Britt also dives into her rural southern Alabama upbringing being a working girl and the daughter of small business owners. She describes America and the progress that has been made in one generation as “truly breathtaking” and how much she loves America and serving as a representative to Alabamians everywhere. The next minute, Britt switches to assertively stating that this American dream has turned into a nightmare. She goes from being happy and smiley to being somber and assertive which, yet again, comes across as fake.
Britt switched to speaking about how our country can do better and saying the main catastrophe is at the Southern border. This segment of her rebuttal included a story about border trafficking and was framed as if the event occurred in the recent months on the U.S. side of the border. However, the subject of that story was a woman, Karla Jacinto Romero: a current advocate for victims of sex trafficking, who often tells her story of being sold into a sex trafficking ring by Mexican cartels at the age of 12. The worst of her story took place in the early 2000’s, during the Bush administration, throughout several different cities in Mexico.
Britt transitions to discussing the nation’s debt and the current state of inflation which have been the highest under Biden. This claim is partially true as inflation is at a high but not the highest in the nation’s history as Britt claimed. President Jimmy Carter had the highest inflation rate with an average of 9.9% during his term.
Britt then asks if we, as this big American family, were in this kitchen having a serious discussion we would be asking if we were better off three years ago. I think most Americans would say no due to the fact there was a global pandemic killing over a little over a million Americans and keeping us locked inside for a year and a half taking our jobs and businesses.
The speech ends with an additional rant expressing support for mothers using in vitro fertilization (despite Alabama’s recent in vitro fertilization controversy) and urging mothers to find joy in motherhood. In my opinion, encouraging women everywhere to have more babies comes across as very “Handmaid’s-esque”. Finally, she adds how Americans are steeped in the lifeblood of patriots and, when “we gaze upon the heavens, never forget that our DNA contains the same ingenuity that put man on the Moon.”
To summarize, the tone of Katie Britt’s speech, it was strange and made me feel uncomfortable as I watched it. Britt spoke so much about her experiences as a mother and not being a career politician but forgot the simple fact that she has been in the political world her entire career. In my opinion, the Republican Party is working overtime to put a man found liable for sexual abuse back in the White House this November and it can be argued that Katie Britt did not help the cause for those undecided voters.
