Biden’s first State of the Union address called a ‘high-stakes affair’
Northwestern experts available on the economy, SCOTUS nominee, the war in Ukraine and more
- Updated: February 28, 2022 – economics and law faculty experts added
EVANSTON, Ill. --- President Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address this evening at 8 p.m. CST. Northwestern experts are available to discuss key topics Biden is expected to address including the economy, stepped up sanctions against Russia, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, the pandemic, legislative strategy and political messaging.
Alvin Tillery on Biden’s first State of the Union address
Tillery is an associate professor of political science at Northwestern University and director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern. His research focuses on American political development, racial and ethnic politics and media and politics. He can be reached at alvin.tillery@northwestern.edu or by contacting Stephanie Kulke at 847-491-4819.
Quote from Professor Tillery
“With his domestic agenda stalled by obstructionists in his own party and the world’s attention focused on Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine, President Biden’s first State of the Union address will be a high stakes affair for his presidency. The speech will provide him very clear opportunities to shore up his partisans by highlighting his many achievements — the vaccination campaign, the infrastructure bill and his renewal of the NATO Alliance. The biggest open question for me is whether Mr. Biden will be able to strike an inspirational tone that can move the country beyond the malaise of COVID fatigue and inspire his partisans to fight for him and the Democrats in the fall elections. It will also be interesting to see if the Republicans in Congress respond to his speech with the same rancor that they did to Barack Obama in 2009.”
Martin Eichenbaum on addressing inflation
Eichenbaum is the Charles Moskos Professor in the department of economics in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on understanding aggregate economic fluctuations. He is currently studying the causes and consequences of exchange rate fluctuations, as well as the effect of monetary policy on postwar United States business cycles. He can be reached at eich@northwestern.edu or by contacting Stephanie Kulke at 847-491-4819.
Quote from Professor Eichenbaum
“The upsurge in inflation requires a substantial change in the strategy of the Federal Reserve. The sooner that change occurs the better.”
Erik C. Nisbet on legislative strategy and political messaging
Nisbet is director of the Center for Communication and Public Policy at Northwestern’s School of Communication. His research lies at the intersection of communication, public opinion and public policy in the areas of science, technology and environmental policy. He also studies governance and elections, and international security. He can be reached at erik.nisbet@northwestern.edu.
Quote from Professor Nisbet
“Biden and the Democrats need to reset the narrative surrounding their performance to date if they have any hope of not being wiped out in the 2022 midterms — the upcoming State of the Union is an opportunity to begin that process and should not be wasted. The Democrats’ legislative strategy and political messaging about Build Back Better, and their agenda more generally, has been disastrous as they tacked too far left and alienated many of the voters that were key to their 2020 success. Biden’s SOTU will indicate whether they continue this political malfeasance or have awoken to the political realities they need to address in order to be successful in Congress and the 2022 polls.”
Andrew Koppelman on Biden's nomination for the Supreme Court
Koppelman is the John Paul Stevens Professor of Law. His scholarship focuses on issues at the intersection of law and political philosophy. He has written more than 100 scholarly articles and seven books, most recently “Gay Rights vs. Religious Liberty? The Unnecessary Conflict,” Oxford University Press, 2020. He can be reached at akoppelman@law.northwestern.edu.
Quote from Professor Koppelman
“I am concerned that the Republicans may try to make a liability out of Brown Jackson’s experience as a public defender. When you do that, you propose to replace due process with some combination of raw intuition plus brute force, which is how Putin does business.”
Andrew Papachristos on addressing gun violence
Papachristos is a professor of sociology, a fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research and director of the Northwestern Neighborhood Network (N3). His main area of research applies network science to the study of gun violence, police misconduct, illegal gun markets, street gangs, and urban neighborhoods. He can be reached at avp@northwestern.edu or by contacting Stephanie Kulke at 847-491-4819.
Quote from Professor Papachristos
“Gun violence is very much [like dealing with a pandemic]. With gun violence you ask, ‘How do we stop the bleeding today?’ Literally, how do we keep people from being shot? Which is a different set of questions than how we keep guns out of people's hands in the first place, or how do we keep these disputes from spilling over into our streets, into neighborhoods where they impact kids. The solutions are not necessarily the same.
“On top of this, we also need to address the long-term underlying inequalities —inequalities in healthcare, justice, opportunities, education, and so on — that are so deeply embedded in our society and continue to cause such great harm.”
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach on the health and wellbeing of America’s children
Schanzenbach is an expert in poverty and economics, a leading researcher focusing on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and director of the Institute for Policy Research. Schanzenbach helped organize this letter, signed by almost 450 economists in support of the enhanced child tax credit; she also chaired a recent working group convened by the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings on childhood in the U.S. The final report is here. Schanzenbach can be reach at dws@northwestern.edu or by contacting Erin Karter at erin.karter@northwestern.edu.
Quote from Professor Schanzenbach
“Too many children live in families with inadequate economic resources, which hurts them in both the short and long run. It makes good economic sense to increase resources to children in the lowest-income families through a refundable child tax credit.”
David Rapp on misinformation
Rapp is a professor of psychology and learning sciences and an expert on misinformation, learning and memory. In a recent study, Rapp found the desire in the media industry to appear balanced can have dire consequences if it lends credibility to an idea that most experts consider unmerited. He is also an author on two studies that help explain the psychology behind misinformed beliefs, including an article in the journal Memory & Cognition and a second in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. Rapp can be reached at rapp@northwestern.edu.
Quote from Professor Rapp
“Misinformation is right up there with the most serious threats the Biden Administration is called to address — it’s on par with climate change and Russia’s acts of aggression. Not only that, the threats posed by mis- and disinformation are central elements of these other global crises. But let’s start with the survival of our own democracy. When regular people talk about Jan. 6, their discussions commonly refer to events that did not occur. The rampant spread of misinformation related to Jan. 6 is dependent on falsely balanced arguments — reinforced by what are consider reliable media outlets — suggesting “both sides were wrong.” According to my research, these arguments appeal to audiences who are already invested in the view that Jan. 6 was a ‘big lie.’ In many cases, the result is a misinformation snowball effect, in which unsubstantiated claims that should get ignored build problematic momentum, potentially confusing audiences and disrupting effective discussion.”
Dr. Egon Ozer on the state of the pandemic
Ozer is director of the Center for Pathogen Genomics and Microbial Evolution and an assistant professor of medicine in infectious diseases. He can be reached by contacting Marla Paul at marla-paul@northwestern.edu.
Quote from Dr. Ozer
“Since the peak of the omicron wave in the U.S., around mid-January 2022, the numbers of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths have continued to steadily decrease throughout the country. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the average number of COVID-19 cases being recorded in the U.S. is about 103,000 per day and falling. This is much less than the 807,000 cases per day that were being recorded at the peak and now closer to the numbers of daily cases that were being reported around Thanksgiving last year.
“The number of deaths is still around 1,900 per day, which is comparable to the peak number of daily deaths seen at the height of the delta wave in mid-September 2021.
“Though all the metrics are currently improving from their peaks last month, the levels of transmission of COVID-19 remain high throughout the U.S. with more than 92% of all U.S. counties recording more than 100 cases per 100,000 residents over the last seven days. Masking and vaccination remain our best protections against COVID-19 infection, hospitalization or death.”
Northwestern sources on Russia and Ukraine: