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[heypoliticsdad]

The State of the Union: an overview

I am still trying to dig down to WHAT I AM FEELING about the state of the union, as in, the state the country is in. Easier is to summarize the State of the Union, as in, the speech Trump gave. Here you go, friends, my thoughts and what stuck 24 hours later.

Part of what is so hard about this speech overall is it is just wrong. It is incorrect. It doesn’t work in the real world. How are we going to cut taxes and spend $1.5 trillion on infrastructure and an unknown amount on fully funding the military (is it really not yet fully funded?)? How are we going to keep the government out of regulating industry while also bringing down the price of prescription drugs? What are these loopholes that need closing to stop this imagined rush of international criminals, and do they apply to white collar criminals too? This speech isn’t even internally consistent, which is a hallmark of this administration, and something I struggle with profoundly. What does it mean when we just don’t care about this any more? Not even a little? When there are no consequences to things like lying on your application for security clearance or in your confirmation hearing? I hear all these pundits I listen to talking about The Threat To The Rule of Law and I’m like, ok, first of all the rule of law doesn’t even exist in this country if you’re Black or a POC or an immigrant or poor or trans or any of those things, or at best it exists conditionally. Second of all, if you believe the rule of law did exist, given everything that’s happened, how can you put its dissolution in the future?? MORE ON THAT LATER.

Also of note: I can’t take on the full sweep of wtfery and distortions and inaccuracies in this speech. There’s only one of me and other people do it better. For a full dissection, take a look at the NY Times or Politico - I liked the Washington Post’s one too but I am out of free articles on their paywall and too lazy to go get my credit card out of my wallet and just subscribe already. Dad’s tired. 

1) Why do male politicians think black suits are ok? They’re not ok. The good lord gave us greys and blues for a reason. Black suits that are not tuxes are just so weird and politician-ey and they’re also very hard to make work, especially with light ties. The red or bright blue ties look crisp, but the light blues and pistachio greens and all that don’t and a black suit + a colored shirt (light blue in particular) is just incorrect. This isn’t an article about fashion so I will stop there but I COULD GO ON.

2) This is the Congressional Black Caucus upon Trump’s self-congratulations with regards to Black employment reaching its lowest level ever, one of the three zillion points he made that is in fact true but given without any context in a way to make him look like he cares about Black people:

3) Notable future gays who are going to regret this later include Preston Sharp, a now-12-year-old who got concerned about how veterans’ graves were being ignored and started a movement to take care of them. I don’t object to this, but I do object to how Trump uses patriotism as a weapon. It’s creepy. He took a dig at everyone taking a knee during the anthem in this part and I was not impressed.

4) Speaking of which, Preston is gawking at Ryan and Rebecca Holets, who were held up as an example of helping each other during the opioid epidemic. As Trump told it, Ryan (a cop) stopped a pregnant woman who was shooting up. She was upset and said she didn’t know what to do or where to go. God told him that it was time for him to help, and so he adopted her baby, and that baby is named Hope. We heard nothing about THE MOTHER OF THAT BABY, merely congratulations and gratitude that the Holets reached out to help the baby. I can’t even begin to deal with everything wrong with applauding taking the baby from the mom and ignoring the mom itself. I finally found a story in the Washington Post that goes into the mom’s story, and it sounds like the Holets have been trying to help her too, supporting her getting into rehab and raising money for her to have a landing place once she’s released. How did none of that make it into this anecdote? THAT is a fucking American story right there: people turning to GoFundMe to support each other because there’s no social safety net.

5) Can we talk some more about this particular toss-off gem from the president, hidden inside some talk about government efficiency, that is certainly definitely 100% not about a certain man whose last name starts with an M- and hopefully ends with a -peachment.

So, tonight, I call on Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

6) While we’re quoting, let’s take this gem about the courts:

Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court justice, and more circuit court judges than any new administration in the history of our country. We are totally defending our Second Amendment, and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty.   

AWKWARD, Donald. AWKWARD. You know who else thought this was awkward? Neil Gorsuch, who is trying to look tough and above the political fray while Stephen Breyer whispers something nasty and Elena Kagan throws up in her mouth just a little:

7) Even stranger - Trump’s weird shout-out in support of paid family leave, which can only be described thusly: 

8) One of the things liberals are supposed to ignore (I learned this while getting that previous screenshot) is all of the suffering caused by undocumented immigrants who are criminals. Trump brought two families whose daughters were killed by undocumented people to show how dangerous undocumented immigrants are. So let’s say this: it fucking sucked that people killed those two young women. But is that reason enough to go rounding up all undocumented people? Of course not, any more than the fact that white men have a reputation for being disproportionately involved in mass shootings means we should round them all up either. There is a lot going on in the statistics of who commits what crimes and I don’t feel like I know enough to dive in and parse them out (especially since you’re unsurprised right-leaning researchers analyze them one way and left-leanings ones quite another.) But for the record, Ann Coulter, I don’t want kids to get killed - and I don’t somehow imagine that treating undocumented people badly will stop that in any way, shape, or form.

9) Overall - Trump was on the downers not the uppers, which meant he stuck to the script and didn’t go off into crazytown even when you could feel him itching to improvise. This is going to be lauded as a victory because he did not run around the stage making rocket noises and flipping off the Democratic side of the room. He blustered. He applauded himself into the mic. He said he wanted more nukes. Everyone chanted U-S-A. It felt like lots of days these days - a run-of-the-mill nausea and idle rage, the resigned rage of disempowerment. 

(sources: event photos are AP or screenshots from various telecasts; quotes from the President are from the C-SPAN transcript;