Donald Trump may have celebrated Team USA for winning the gold at the Olympics in hockey, but he was not in a puckish mood during his State of the Union speech. Instead, Trump stuck to his tried-and-true script of denouncing Democrats as ‘sick’, mocking concerns about affordability and cooing over Melania as a great new movie star. Far from nobody ever seeing anything like it, Trump delivered what everybody has already seen.
At times, the State of the Union devolved into a saccharine reality show as Trump focused in on the plight or bravery of one of the plain folks who served as his props
Ever the salesman, he was not shy with the superlatives, declaring that America is the ‘hottest’ country in the world – ‘bigger, better, richer, stronger than ever before.’ If there was one thing that was longer than ever, it was Trump’s own address, which set a record length of 108 minutes. Trump seemed most energised when he handed out medals for valour by the bushelful. At times, the State of the Union devolved into a saccharine reality show as Trump focused in on the plight or bravery of one of the plain folks who served as his props.
The strangest part of Trump’s speech wasn’t what he said but what he did not. He barely alluded to foreign affairs – and when he did, it was in the most cryptic fashion possible. Various pundits had speculated that Trump would announce that he was targeting Iran. Nothing of the kind occurred. Trump disposed of the topic in a few cursory sentences as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, looked on impassively.
‘They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons programme, in particular nuclear weapons. Yet they continue starting it all over. We wiped it out, and they want to start all over again – and are, this moment again, pursuing their sinister ambitions. We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words: we will never have a nuclear weapon,’ Trump said.
What Trump will authorise or not remains shrouded in mystery. Perhaps he himself doesn’t really know. Trump, who likes to wax eloquent about the military’s new secret weapon that he calls ‘the Discombobulator,’ left much of Washington discombobulated with his failure, or, if you prefer, refusal, to divulge his plan of action. It’s too soon, in other words, for Trump’s MAGA pursuivants, from Tucker Carlson to the American Conservative’s Curt Mills, to retreat from the field of battle against intervention in the Middle East.
Another matter that Trump touched on only glancingly was the economy. Other than dismissing the notion that prices have risen, he seemed to suggest that under his stewardship everything is peachy keen, claiming at one point that he had seen petrol for sale at $1.85 a gallon, which will come as news to most Americans. Does he realise that a prolonged war with Iran is bound to send oil prices soaring? At the same time, he leaned into the old adage that the best defence is a good offence, blaming the Democrats who know ‘full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem.’
In the Democratic response to Trump, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger zeroed in on affordability, charging that ‘prices are too high.’ What, she asked, is Trump doing to help lower them? It’s clear that Democrats will pound home this theme as the midterm elections approach. Indeed, the Democrats are crowing that they won two special elections in Pennsylvania today, ensuring that they maintain a majority in the state House. They also won a special election in Maine.
For Trump, however, the State of the Union amounted to no harm, no foul. The only thing that will remain memorable about his speech, which contained no new initiatives, was its sheer length. Unlike Team USA, Trump didn’t go for the gold.
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