Traditionally, the State of the Union address is one of the world’s most boring spectacles. A POTUS strides confidently down the aisle, after being announced with much fanfare, and shakes a lot of hands, mostly his Congressional acolytes. He then ambles to the podium for what most always amounts to a mind-numbing recitation of his administration’s accomplishments, followed by an even more excruciating laundry list of planned initiatives, all of which sound far more ambitious than how they will actually play out. As if the exercise isn’t close enough to watching paint dry on its own, add to it continued interruptions of manufactured applause, as Democrat and Republican lawmakers take turns clapping for what they feel needs punctuation. By the end all eyes are glazed and everyone is glad a full year will pass until such tedium will be experienced again.
However, there is a method to this dullness. By breaking down the previous year, and anticipating the next one, into neat and predictable pieces of ordered oratory, US governance is given a sense of routine structure, a predictability. We the people can remain confident that the continuum of America’s enduring brand of pluralism is safe moving forward. And say what you will of the enterprise, Winston Churchill probably did it best when he quipped liberal democracy was the worst system he could think of…. except for all the rest of them. Indeed, put in perspective, an evening of run on drudgery seems a small price to pay for a process that underpins relative freedom and cooperation.
Things may go a good bit differently this year.
Tonight the American President lumbers into the House Chamber truly certain of only one thing: most of the electorate strongly disapproves of, not only his job performance, but him as a fellow human being. He also knows that the shrinking minority of his strongest supporters expect him to shake up most any traditional accoutrement of his office; they are a bloc of Joe Wilsons, who appear to be all this President can rely on lately.
Trump’s growing disdain for sticking to simply delivering what his decidedly subpar speechwriting team provides has been clear to anyone paying attention since the last State of the Union. At campaign rallies, and formal events alike, the President has taken increasing comfort in, not just wandering from a provided script, but lurching completely out-of-bounds, enthusiastically adlibbing with his own set of facts and anecdotes. Tonight may be no different. Why would it be?
Of course inviting Trump to highlight his achievements is like asking Rodney Dangerfeld to mention those who dissed him. After all, this is the guy who said recently he is responsible for the safest year in the history of US air travel… there hasn’t been a commercial air crash in this country since 2009. And he’s the same story teller who lauded the Dow reaching 25K the other day… trouble is it had done the same last year and was just getting back to that figure after months of investor hell, mostly precipitated from White House chaos. It’s a sure bet he’ll boast about our European allies now paying more of their fair share for defense, the result of his steadfast refusal to play the hapless sucker anymore. That the world witnessed something altogether different during last year’s ugly shame in Brussels will, of course, form the unfortunate subtext for his self-congratulations. And one can bet their 401K Trump will hail our new environmental realism with no mention of last year’s increase in hydrocarbon expulsion, feared by many another nail in planet Earth’s coffin.
Yet and still, as surreal and delusional as the President’s triumphs are sure to sound, his list of demands moving forward is what should really worry those in favor of democratic stability. This President now banks on the worst iterations of nativism to butter his political toast. And with Mueller closing in, and his own son almost surely facing indictment, the hints from the White House of Trump calling for the nation to “unite behind” him may very well transcribe into shrieks about duct-taped women in trunks and deep state conspiracies favoring Hillary Clinton.
Trump just proved fully capable of the worst type of governmental sabotage and surely will spend much of tonight justifying and deflecting blame for the shutdown he created. It’s doubtful Stephen Miller is capable of verse sufficient to Trump’s chaotic mindset for getting those points across. Thus, he will feel compelled to punctuate on the fly. Buckle up. Moreover, regardless of how much his lawyers beg him not to publicly air his cascading legal circumstances, would anyone be surprised if Trump doesn’t use a national address to take his “witch hunt” tweets to the next level?
The record provides nothing positive as to what Trump is capable of spewing once he veers off the rails. All indications are tonight we may see his worst, which his wretched core no doubt will applaud. This is a President fully indebted to a constituency informed in total by a 24/7 multimedia platform of provocateurs, who subjugate all responsibility for truth to an endless stream of shock and outrage. Speeches meant to assuage and find common ground are equated to buckling at the feet of “establishment’ enemies. It’s doubtful Trump wants to disappoint the likes of Rush and Mark Levin.
No enemy of America could ask for more than an elected President convinced his political survival, indeed personal freedom, necessitates continuous attacks on institutions most responsible for protecting against that opponent’s incursions on the nation’s security. Even better would be a bloc of supporters capable of forcing one of the country’s major political parties to equate their parochial political fortunes with allowing that leader to do his worst at dividing fellow countrymen, naked incompetence and corruption taking a backseat to the visceral bigotry and resentment he voices like none before him. Tonight we will see how willing Trump is to clarify before the world this daily double of ruination. I wouldn’t bet against him. BC