Listening to Tuesday’s State of the Union speech, it was hard not to lose hope in the future of the country and the American experiment. It was delivered with grandiose delusion by a stammering, brain-addled octogenarian. When he wasn’t tripping over words or making stuff up (how he is taming inflation, as if the president controls interest rates), Joe Biden was being a petulant scold, sounding as if he was really angry that someone misplaced his dentures. He wants to raise taxes, expand the welfare state, all because he thinks he knows what’s best even though he barely knows what...