President Joe Biden gave a prime-time speech Thursday about gun violence. It was carried by all three broadcast networks, as well as the cable stations. As presidential speeches go, it was fine; he mixed some aspirational policy goals with support for more modest objectives that may have a chance of passage, and added a little Republican-bashing to the mix.
But why give such speeches?
We don’t know what the White House staff thought it could accomplish, but we do know that high expectations would have been unrealistic. Presidential speeches are highly unlikely to change anyone’s mind about public policy. That’s been true throughout the polling era. It’s been true when presidents are popular. It’s been true for presidents such as Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who were generally thought to be strong public speakers. Given that Biden is not currently popular and the straight-into-the-camera policy speech isn’t his strength, there’s really no reason to think that he’ll change minds. At the same time, these speeches generally don’t improve a president’s polling numbers or spark voters to go contact their members of Congress with demands to do what the president wants.
