LOL! Very well put!

Some 32.2 million people watched President Biden’s State of the Union address on broadcast or cable television Thursday night, according to Nielsen Market Research, a marked increase from the 27.3 million people who watched in 2023.

Viewership skewed older, with 74 percent of the audience age 55 or older. Just 19 percent of viewers who watched one of the 14 channels tracked by Nielsen were between the ages of 35 and 54, and about 5 percent of the audience came from the 18-to-34 demographic.

That translates to 6 million viewers between ages 35 and 54 and 1,600,000 between ages 18 and 34. There are about 84 million Americans in that first group and about 67 million in the second group. So 7% of 35 – 54 year olds watched the President’s State of the Union Address and 2% of 18 – 34 year olds watched.

For those of you 55 or older, think back to when you were 35, 40 years old. Watching a State of the Union address was almost mandatory. It could come up in meetings at work, meetings with clients, conversations with the ladies in one’s bridge club, at the hairdressers. Even if you weren’t interested you almost had to watch it to maneuver in career and social situations. 7% of 35 – 54 year olds watched!

It’s dead.
(Stating the reciprocals of the above makes it even more obvious. 93% of 35 – 54 year olds and 98% of 18 – 34 year olds DID NOT watch the State of the Union Address.

The regime continues with the pomp and circumstance and CNN and Fox continue with the 7 person panels sitting at desks with “Breaking News!!” on reactions and polling, but it’s all kabuki. A farce. None of it drives voting patterns or policy.

“I am Oz, the great and powerful!”

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

The culture has changed, immensely, and so many in the media and politics refuse to recognize or adapt to the changes.

The State of the Union address? How many people watched it? How many people care? The primaries? “Super Tuesday?” How many 20, 30, 40 year old Americans care about the primaries or tuning into CNN or FoxNews to watch a panel of 8 people look at maps of counties changing colors as precincts report primary vote totals?

Remember Academy Awards Watch parties? Starting around the age of 18 I often entered Oscar betting pools with friends and often watched the Oscar broadcast, sometimes attending watch parties, even Oscar watching costume parties. The next Monday at work everyone discussed the broadcast.

The Academy Awards show is dead. The Academy just doesn’t understand this yet. Super Tuesday is dead. The Iowa Caucuses are dead. The New Hampshire “first in the nation” primary is meaningless. Dead. The CBS, NBC and ABC nightly news broadcasts are dead. “Meet the Press,” “Face the Nation?” Dead.

As others have written, who yet hasn’t formed an opinion on Donald Trump and Joe Biden? Who hasn’t yet formed an opinion on the GOP and DNC? All the above formats would be dying no matter who was running this season, but especially with these two, no one has any need to participate in watching any of this stuff; state of the union addresses, debates, primary results. A lot of us older people are doing this out of some sense of duty or tradition, but honestly, do any of us care? Are any of us going to change our opinion of the DNC or GOP or any of the candidates based on any of this?

Joe: You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.

Norma: I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.

Well, now the pictures are so small they fit on a screen we all carry in our purses or pockets and we don’t have to wait to see which 90 minute feature one of three studios will transmit to us every week or two. Every drama ever filmed is available instantly and hundreds more roll out each second; some in 15 second clips.

The narrative cannot be controlled from a few studio executives in collusion with Washington D.C. and Wall Street. Even if they hold a debate with their handpicked moderators it won’t matter, because nobody is watching.

There is the “expectation game.” George W. Bush was expected to do terribly in his debates with Al Gore. When he did passably well, he beat expectations, and in that sense “won” the debate (Gore wasn’t that great either).

Debating DeSantis, Haley and the others might have given Trump good practice for a show down with Biden. He also might have stumbled and doomed his campaign. If he did very well — better than he usually does in debates — it might have raised expectations for him in a fall debate to the point where it hurts him.

Consistency, when and if it is actually spotted and identified, is a distinct rarity among political types vying for advantage. Encourage and nurture it, for it is all too fleeting.

Biden began to visibly wind down at the end of his hour on Thursday. Ninety minutes might be more than he could do. Can any doctors here comment on whether these amphetamine doses are medically dangerous to Biden?