For better or for worse, the perception of American politics always comes back to the President. As the face of the government, he is ultimately associated by affiliation to everything that comes out of his administration, even if he is not directly responsible for them. But there are also cases in which he can influence this perception himself, such as the nationally televised annual State of the Union broadcast in which the President outlines the current status of issues and plans for the future.

On Tuesday, President Obama gave his second-to-last State of the Union address. This address, of course, came after the Republican takeover of the Senate in the midterm elections, a victory which gave the Republicans control of the legislature and seems to set the stage for a clash between it and the Democratic executive on how to resolve national issues like community college and tax reform.

Such a mindset was certainly apparent throughout the speech as Obama extended his ideological platform. Although never mentioning the mid-term results directly, the atmosphere was apparent that there is a new situation in Washington. One of Obama’s major points in regard was a promise stating that anything the Republican Congress sent him that tried to roll back his existing plans would be met with a veto.

On the surface, this sounds reasonable. Obama spent much of the last block of the speech discussing the problems of partisanship and competition over party lines being prioritized over policy. And yet, he talked not of plans for cooperation, but plans for further government conflict. This is not encouraging for those that hope that the new government will be productive.

The second major problem with this rhetoric relates to the theme in Obama’s speech towards growth. For his introduction, Obama gave a bunch of statistics that claimed to prove that things were better that they were six years ago. To a great extent, this is true, however, veiled within his speech are two assumptions that he hopes that the audience will make.

First, that all the growth was due to Democratic policy. While things like increased health care coverage are clearly due to administration policy, other things like the current economic upswing are more due to fluctuations in the current price of oil than what the current administration has done. Second: that the Republicans are at fault for everything. No one will deny that the Republicans did a lot of blocking issues, however, this does not mean that all they did was make things worse. Rather, they made objections, as they were elected to do, based on what they were voted in on. For a speech about cooperation in Congress being key, there were a lot of hints that only the representatives from the red states fail.

The issues like Obama’s plan for free (at least in terms of official cost) community college may not get through a Republican Congress. However, Republican plans for growth may also not get through a Democratic executive. Now, it isn’t as much about the idea of the Republicans blocking bills. Now, the Republicans are supposed to propose bills. Obama has the choice to veto.

Right now, what the speech and the Republican rebuttal represent are two ideologies presented without ways to make them compatible. However, there are issues that can be agreed upon. Things like trade promotion and veteran’s assistance are easy compromise points that could help to make things better. Unfortunately, despite many assertions to the contrary, party partisanship is still the encompassing force in Washington.