I suppose I’m a masochist, but
just for the hell of it (literally) I decided to watch all of Donald Trump’s
State of the Disunion address this week. It was bearable only because I had a
basketball game playing on my iPad, so I did have some distraction from the endless
self-congratulatory blather that was droning away on my TV. Anyway, here are 10
observations from my viewing experience.
1. From the get-go, I felt as if I
had been transported to Anaheim and was stuck in Fantasyland. It is obvious
that Donald inhabits an irreality that is totally divorced from the world of
facts and veracity that most sensible humans recognize. Whether he actually
believes all the nonsense that streams from his piehole is a good question. I’m
sure that since he’s surrounded by sycophants who tell him only what he wants
to hear, he may actually believe what he says, but some of it is just too
otherworldly for even Donald to believe. The “golden age” he keeps referring to
exists only in his own head, but that can still cause severe problems.
2. I was amused when he claimed he
was going to go after fraud and that he was putting J. D. Vance in charge of
this “war on fraud.” This is akin to the “late, great Hannibal Lecter” saying
he was going to track down cannibals and bring them to justice. But J. D.’s job
should be easy. If he wants to find fraud, he doesn’t have to look far. He can
find it in the Oval Office and Mar-a-Lago and among the many criminals Trump
has pardoned. I mean, seriously, Donald is the only president to have been
convicted of fraud. And it’s only gotten worse since his second term began.
Whether it’s crypto-scams or taking jumbo-jet-sized bribes from foreign
governments or just the pedestrian stuff like Trump University or the Trump Foundation,
if J. D. wants to go after fraud, he may as well investigate the king of fraud.
A nice little side benefit is that it would lead to a new job title for himself.
3. Once again, Donald bragged
about how much winning we are experiencing in America. So much that people are
begging him to stop all the winning. And of course he promises even more. But
winning in Donald’s dictionary is defined as how he plays golf. The ordinary
Americans who are having trouble paying their rent and utilities, who can’t
find decent health insurance for less than an arm and a leg, who have been laid
off and can’t find a new job may beg to differ. The billionaires are certainly
winning. Trump’s family is winning. But the rest of us? Not so much.
4. I was actually surprised at Donald’s
audacity when awarding the Medal of Honor to some deserving individuals. He said
he’s always wanted one for himself, but he supposed it wasn’t allowed for him
to award a Medal of Honor to himself. Oh, really? A serial draft dodger can’t
award himself a Medal of Honor? What’s wrong with this country? I’m sure he’ll
figure out a way to get one. Maybe one of this week’s recipients will frame his
and give it to Donald. Pathetic.
5. In Trumpworld, only undocumented
aliens commit murder. Thus, when speaking about the savage attack that killed
Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, Donald claimed the murderer was a criminal
who “came in through open borders.” But according to the Charlotte Observer,
the killer’s Facebook page said he was born in Charlotte and attended high
school there. The newspaper also said it had interviewed his American
mother. Most SOTU addresses are carefully previewed to prevent this sort of
blatant falsehood, but untruth is the air Donald breathes, and no one in his
circle of sycophants is going to tell him the truth. But the truth is that immigrants,
and especially undocumented aliens, commit crimes at a far lower rate than we
native-born citizens.
6. According to Donald, the
economy is humming, but he inherited a nightmare from Biden, which is why he
has presided over the greatest turnaround in American history. Yes, the economy
is blundering along at about the same pace it was when he took office for the
second time, but there are worrying signs, especially on the job-creation
front. It would probably be doing much better, but his tariffs have created a
drag on economic growth and a high degree of uncertainty for businesses and our
foreign trade partners. The stock market is doing well, but that is because we
have a K-shaped economy—great
for the wealthy, a struggle for the middle class and the poor. But this was by
design, and Donald sees only the upper half of the K.
7. Even though Donald’s own
administration assured Americans that the 2020 election was the most secure
ever, and the courts tossed out every lawsuit alleging fraud, Donald continues
to claim that there was massive cheating in the last election. Of course this
is false, but his insistent ranting about fraud creates a pretext for interfering
in the upcoming 2026 and 2028 elections. Everything the Republicans are
proposing (especially the SAVE Act) will not make elections more secure but
will suppress voting, particularly among demographics that tend to vote
Democratic.
8. The worst moment of the sordid SOTD
circus was when Donald asked everyone to stand if they believed the primary
task of government was to protect American citizens and not illegal aliens.
This was a purely divisive ploy, aimed at accomplishing two goals: first, to
paint the Democrats as unpatriotic and, second, to again vilify immigrants. And
every Republican who stood knew exactly what Donald was doing, and they all
bowed the knee while rising to their feet. But it is not the government’s
responsibility to protect only American citizens. Government should protect
every law-abiding person in this country, whether citizen, illegal immigrant,
refugee, tourist, or visitor. Donald and his ilk, however, are trying to vilify
hardworking people who have come to this country to escape horrific circumstances
in their native lands or even to try to make a new start, just as his
grandparents and his wife did. One might think he would have a special place in
his heart for immigrants, but that is true only if they are white.
9. I wondered if Donald would be
able to make it through his speech without taking the Supremes to task for
killing his tariffs. Well, actually, I did not wonder. I knew he couldn’t. But
he didn’t spend as much time on tariffs as I thought he might. But I need to clarify
that his new “Section 122” tariffs are actually more illegal than the IEEPA
tariffs the Supreme Court just declared unconstitutional. If you don’t believe
me, here’s a quote from an article by Andrew McCarthy, a conservative
legal commentator, that appeared in the National Review:
“These new tariffs are even more
clearly illegal than Trump's IEEPA tariffs…..
“In Section 122, Congress endowed
the president with narrow, temporary authority to impose tariffs ‘to deal with
large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits’
(emphasis added). What Trump is complaining about—something he insists is a
crisis but is not—is the balance of trade, not of payments.
The United States does not have an overall balance of payments deficit, much
less a large and serious one.
“A trade deficit
between the U.S. and a foreign nation occurs, mainly in connection with goods
(which is just one aspect of international commerce), when imports are greater
than exports. This is not really a problem for a variety of reasons—e.g., a
trade deficit results in an investment surplus, the U.S. is a major services
economy and often runs exported services surpluses that mitigate the imports
deficit in goods, etc.
“The balance of payments is
a broader concept than the balance of trade. It accounts for all the economic
transactions that take place between the United States and the rest of the
world. Even without getting into every kind of transaction that entails,
suffice it to say that foreign investment in the United States, coupled with
the advantages our nation accrues because the dollar is the world’s reserve
currency, more than make up for the longstanding trade deficit in goods.
“Our overall payments are in
balance. There is no crisis.
“It’s vital to understand why
Section 122 was enacted. There was a financial crisis in the late 60s and early
70s under the Bretton Woods system, when the dollar was tied to gold. Foreign
countries that held dollar reserves could exchange them for gold at a fixed
rate. Meanwhile, our government was spending at a high clip due to the Vietnam
War and Great Society programs. This and the obligation to pay out gold put
enormous pressure on the dollar. . . .
“Now, over a half century later,
these conditions no longer obtain. The dollar floats and the government does
not concern itself with gold parity. The dollar is the global reserve currency,
so demand for dollars by foreign nations is robust. We have strong capital
inflows and our highly liquid financial markets are the envy of the world.
Notwithstanding trade deficits, there is no balance of payments problem.
“Nor is it necessary, as Section
122 puts it, to impose temporary tariffs in order ‘to prevent an imminent and
significant depreciation of the dollar in foreign exchange markets[.]’
“There is no rationale under
Section 122 to impose tariffs. Because President Trump has no unilateral
authority to order tariffs, he must meet the preconditions of Section 122 to
justify levying them. He cannot. Not even close.”
10. Paul Krugman’s title for his
post-SOTD email was “So Little Truth, So Much Time.” That is an apt description
of the whole bloviating almost-two-hours of truth-torture. Donald is incapable
of telling the truth, but he loves to hear the sound of his own voice. Which
makes for unbearably long and rambling “speeches” that carry very little
weight. Unfortunately, it is what it is. And the ratings proved it. This was
the least-watched SOTU in a long time.
So, those are my 10 observations.
I could go on and on, like Donald, but I’ve wasted enough time on this
depressing topic. I suffered through the whole hour and three quarters of it,
just to say I’d done it. Was it worth it? Of course not. And I probably won’t
do it next year, if, by hook or crook, he is still president then. With his
diet, his weight, and his temper, I’m truly surprised he hasn’t suffered a
major heart attack or stroke already. But I’ll grant him this: he is stubborn.
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