Why That GOP State of the Union Rebuttal Was So Bizarre

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“We continue to draw courage from those who bent the moral arc of the universe, and when we gaze upon the heavens, never forget that our DNA contains the same ingenuity that put man on the moon.” —Alabama Sen. Katie Britt in the Republican response to the 2024 State of the Union

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt delivered a perplexing rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech Thursday.

In the 18-minute-long speech, Britt is seated in front of a beige kitchen with a silver cross dangling on her necklace. The cozy backdrop contains a neat fruit bowl and a photograph tacked to the wall appearing to show the senator, her children, and her husband.

Britt started the response criticizing Biden’s speech—in which, among other arguments, he portrayed Democrats as champions for the working class and promised to restore Roe v. Wade—as a performance from a career politician.

The irony, though, is that her own response came off as overly scripted to many online spectators. (One person quipped that her speech was a “late entry” to the upcoming Oscars.)

Although many agreed she appeared to be acting, no one knew what role she was auditioning for exactly.

It was her cadence and delivery that perhaps caused the most confusion during and after the speech. Several times during the rebuttal, she began to whisper—even hiss, some would say. Female politicians’ voices have always been scrutinized, often unfairly, but she sounded and appeared perpetually as if she were holding back tears, dramatically enunciating many individual words as if through great anguish and barely suppressed rage. Britt’s quavery, faint voice may have been intended to inject or reflect a sense of peril and doom around the state of the country under Biden’s leadership. But, for those who know what Britt sounds like regularly—quite normal!—the pearl-clutching act rang disingenuous and strange.

Just 42 years old and telegenic, Britt was chosen to give the address as a rising GOP star. But her youth, and her pitch for herself as “America’s mom,” clashed bizarrely not only with her voice, but with her speech’s apocalyptic prophecies around the future of a Biden-led America. If the president is reelected, Britt warned, it will mean the Chinese Communist Party infiltrating the minds of younger generations through TikTok, a defunded police force, and violent crime from Mexican cartels.

“From fentanyl poisonings to horrific murders, there are empty chairs tonight at kitchen tables just like this one because of President Biden’s senseless border policies,” she said.

In between the rhetoric of doom and despair, Britt’s face maintained a sanguine smile that some on social media called “dystopian.” Others joked the video was A.I.

Women in politics have often been implored—by opponents and advisers alike—to smile more. It’s an outdated and sexist refrain that suggests that women who seem stern or cold are not politically viable. But her constant smiling may have produced the opposite effect.

“Why does Katie Britt go from smiling to being on the verge of tears and then back to some scary Steven King character?” Joy Behar, a host on The View, wrote on X.

In addition to Britt’s semipermanent smile, the kitchen backdrop, and her numerous references to mothers, daughters, fathers, and all family members in between, the senator appeared to be a promoting a “cult of domesticity” (TL;DR: a belief that valorizes stay-at-home mothers who contribute to a strong family unit by upholding domestic duties).

It was a thinly veiled attempt to win the confidence of conservative female voters—but it may have backfired with voters who are disillusioned with the Republican Party in particular following the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos are children, placing IVF operations in the state in legal limbo.

Around the speech’s 13-minute mark, addressing the outrage over the Alabama ruling, Britt veered into a telemarketer vibe, reminiscent of commercials in which salespeople urge viewers to call the number on the screen.

“We strongly support continued nationwide access to in vitro fertilization,” Britt said. “We want to help loving moms and dads bring precious life into this world.”

The conviction behind her voice sounded less targeted to doubtful GOP women, though, and more as if she were trying to convince herself.

Britt’s odd and dramatic delivery was further underlined in her grand conclusion, in which she waxed poetic about the victories of mankind and American society, including that moon-landers’ ingenuity running through our DNA.

“We are steeped in the blood of patriots,” she said. “We now carry forward the same flame of freedom as the liberators of an oppressed Europe.

“Together, we can reawaken the heroic spirit of a great nation,” she continued. “Because, America, we don’t just have a rendezvous with destiny; we take destiny’s hand and we lead it.”

At the end of her speech, the smile returned—for an awkward length of time, before the camera cut off (an editing choice that, to be fair, was not her fault). Then, the show concluded … to a resounding wave of confusion.

Former RNC Chair Michael Steele said on X, “Well, that Katie Britt experience was … experiential.”

Not all reviews, however, were negative.

When asked about the GOP response, Biden took a diplomatic approach and called Britt “a very talented woman,” before adding, “I didn’t quite understand the connections she was making.”