"A better politics is one where we appeal to each other's basic decency² instead of our basest fears," Obama said in his second-to-last State of the Union Address delivered at the Republican-controlled Congress. 

 

The president said debates between his fellow Democrats³ and the GOP should be conducted "without demonizing each other," and they should not be "fake controversies⁴ that have nothing to do with people's daily lives." 

 

During his sixth annual speech, the president also hints that there are common grounds on which the two parties may work together. 

 

"Yes, passions still fly on immigration, but surely we can all see something of ourselves in the striving young students, and agree that no one benefits when a hardworking mom is taken from her child, and that it's possible to shape a law that upholds our tradition as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants," Obama said.

 

The president also noted⁵ that the two parties can "come together" to make voting easier for Americans and "to reform America's criminal justice system so that it protects and serves us all."

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