There were rumors that President Trump’s first State of the Union address was going to run two hours and anyone would be forgiven for dreading it, but it turns out it was a politically confrontational spectacle that this country needed and deserved.
Trump used his nationally televised speech Tuesday to draw attention over and over to the chasm between his party and Democrats, often in ball-busting ways. On the economy, he accused Democrats of faking their concern on the high cost of living. “You caused that problem,” he said, facing the Democrat side of the House chamber.
After recognizing the families of victims of repeat offenders, Trump noted the Democrats who didn’t stand in respect. “How do you not stand?” he said. When he called for Congress to pass election integrity legislation that would require voter ID — which almost every Democrat in Congress opposes — Trump said, “They wanna cheat. They have cheated. And their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat. And we’re going to stop it.”
More than once, Trump called Democrats in the room “crazy” and “sick people.” It’s certainly not child’s play, and that’s a good thing. It’s time to grow up. This speech was a lot like Trump’s address to the nation this time last year, and it should be the norm.
The cute suggestion that every president should use every State of the Union address for generic, saccharine appeals to unity for the sake of it is a Washington establishment preference intended to conceal all of the problems caused by that same Washington establishment (by which I mean the news media, the permanent bureaucracy and all the “think tanks” and nonprofits that financially benefit from low-information voters).
If the Covid-lockdown era taught this country anything at all, it’s that there are exceedingly few reasons for a president to waste time on “unity.” Unity implies equality and a sense of partnership. Democrats believe in one thing: Their power and their way.
That’s why back in 2020 Democrat leaders told everyone else to lock themselves inside away from their friends and loved ones while they themselves snuck out to restaurants, salons, gyms, and parties. We simply do not believe in the same things, and that fact is put on the most prominent display possible with the State of the Union speech, when every broadcast network and every cable news channel carries that one event.
That audience is smaller and smaller anyway, but while it’s there, it’s best that the time is used to show just how alien, unattractive, and anti-American the Democrat Party is.
