THE STATE OF TRUMP’S UNION

Trump, politically weakened perhaps even mortally, more than passed the test of sounding Presidential in the State of Union Address.  There is general skepticism whether or not anything that Trump could say mattered. Ironically the crowd who believe that most are the Republicans. In fact they find that the best way for them to defend him is to posit, “Don’t listen to what he says. Rather watch what he does”. 

The GOP legislators had to be relieved that he did not, for the moment, declare an Emergency in order to build his wall and or force another shutdown. His failure to do that has already angered the spokespersons of his base and they are out in full force. The POTUS has to hope that his flourishing rhetoric will more than compensate for this. The most glaringly jarring note of the evening was a warning against investigating him, threatening that no legislation can be effected should those inquiries continue. The Donald in effect claimed that the “investigations” were unpatriotic confirming his belief that he is the State.

The acid test of whetherTrump has become Presidential will be in what he subsequently tweets. Jay H. Ell is not holding his breath.  Meanwhile the fact checkers are negating a substantial number of his usual suspect claims.

THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS IN REAL TIME

Trump had spent his “executive time” in the morning smearing and trashing Pelosi, Schumer and the Democratic Congress but the reassuring message from the WhiteHouse was that was going to be a conciliatory State of Union speech - one of bipartisanship and so he began to the relief of the Republicans. The POTUS then transitioned into his great achievements which included denuding Obamacare, his tax breaks for the rich and cutting pollution and other regulations. America was an economic miracle, thanks to him. He triumphantly touted the bipartisan criminal reform act, which indeed was a major progressive step in the right direction. 

Trump then morphed his message into attacking “ridiculous partisan investigations” which could prevent American prosperity.  The POTUS stated, “If there is going to be peace and legislation there cannot war and investigation. It just doesn’t work that way. We must be united at home to defeat our adversaries abroad”. Trump still does not get it. The US Government is not Trump Inc that can be run like a mob family.

All this lead up to the “national emergency” at our Southern border with large organized caravans menacing the country. These were about invade as there was little border protection. This was an onslaught and threat to American security. He then gave the usual spiel which had got him nowhere to date replete with the usual factual inaccuracies. Even Vice President Pence began wincing. He would get the wall built, no longer concrete  -  “Walls work and walls save lives.” The terrified GOP legislators heaved a sigh of relief that he did not declare a National Emergency in order to build his wall and or force another shutdown. They would live to fight another day.

He then paid tribute to the women, especially the women elected to Congress.  Closely following were his “iffy” trade policies. Trump moved onto positive high bipartisan notes such as infrastructure, high prescription drug prices, price transparency in health care, the elimination of AIDS and childhood cancer and paid family leave. As some of these are old promises and as yet nothing has been done there was not too much excitement about this rhetoric.

Finally, he gave the base some red meat, other than immigration, and went onto condemn late term abortion and ended by justifying his foreign policy. Trump articulated a popular pro Jewish and Israeli policy - popular especially among his Evangelical base. The POTUS promised that America would never be a socialist country. Trump would not create any bipartisanship by lumping Bernie Sander’s socialism with that of Venezuela. 

DONALD’S STAGE IS THE STATE OF THE UNION

From the word go The Donald had made it clear that this was not the State of Union speech but rather a State of Trump moment. This was Trump theater at its best. The backdrop of the traditional pomp and ceremony were fitting props for his one man show. The great demagogue, the great reality star playing to a live audience televised to viewers, only second in magnitude to the Super Bowl, was what he was all about. No better venue to deliver his stieck. Most important, he really get’s juiced up when the crowd screams rah rah at every platitude, as half of them did.

 He had had one Presidential moment to date and that was last year’s State of the Union Address. This was his opportunity for the next one and his performance did not disappoint.   

TRUMP’S PLIGHT IN REAL TIME - THE STATE OF TRUMP’S UNION SUCKS

Trump, if he had any insight, would recognize that he was performing at a disadvantage. Nancy Pelosi had forced him to end the shut down with nothing to show for the chaos he had caused. In the process she forced him to postpone the State of The Union show as she controls the keys to the theatre - all this to polls indicating a cascading loss of approval. 

He had been put between a rock and a hard place between the Republican legislators and those spokespeople representing his base. The former had given him two days to reopen the Government or face a bipartisan motion to do so. The latter, including Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh went ballistic when he caved. 

Then the Republican legislators have censored him twice in the past month over foreign policy. He was told to stop supporting the carnage of his Saudi allies and rapped over the knuckles for unilaterally, on his own, just announcing that he was pulling the American troops out of Syria without providing for his allies the Kurds and Israelis.

Then of course there was the increasing legal jeopardy he was facing - yet another one initiated on the day - a case opened in connection with alleged illegalities related to his Inaugural Celebrations. Nobody knows where a gigantic $107 million came from or went.

Contemporaneously with Donald Trump’s second address to the Nation he celebrated his approximately 5th thousand tweet, 8,459 lies, and 175 days residing in one of his resorts during his Presidency. In addition he holds the record for doing the least work in a day of any President, has the greatest turn over in his administration and has more unfilled positions in the Federal Government since time immemorial. His Presidency has racked up a record number of indictments for campaign and administration members.

He also more than any other President has concentrated the least on the job at hand as reflected in the content of his tweets.

CONTENT OF TWEETS -  TRUMP’S POLICY STATEMENTS

While Franklyn Roosevelt communicated via “fireside chats” and John Kennedy mastered the art of Television to inform and connect with “the people”, Donald J. Trump, on average 7 times a day does so by using 140 characters or less in his twitter account - “sad!”

To date he has tweeted 362 times about “Fake News” so it shouldn’t surprise that he has made Sean Hannity and or Fox News the subject of 315 fawning outpourings. The “lying” CNN with 72, “the failing” New York Times with 71 and “the disgusting” NBC, 58, constitute most of his policy statements on the real Fake News. Thus not surprisingly he has spent about twenty precent of his Presidency discussing the state of the Media, who other than Fox News, are the “Enemy of the People”.

No less than on 452 occasions, (ten percent of tweets), have been devoted to his assessment of “The Russian Thing”, denying that there was any collusion with the Russians. This has decreased a bit with the recent rash of indictments and guilty pleas. It is fair to conclude that he still believes the Mueller Investigation is a “hoax” and “a witch hunt”. He has attributed its initiation and workings to a scheme orchestrated by Hillary Clinton, the Democrats and The Dark State who are all plotting a coup de etat.

His obsessive preoccupation with and belittling of his predecessor Barak Obama is manifested in 171 tweets and his hatred of “crooked” Hillary Clinton is the subject of over 200. Jay H. Ell supposes that it is only right to reassure the electorate of the disaster the electoral college rescued the country from by electing him instead of the winner of the popular vote, (His Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders has stated that it was G-d’s will). He has claimed the outcome of the 2016 Presidential elections as the greatest victory ever with the largest gathering on record to watch an inaugural address. As for Barak Obama, he needs to remind his adoring red capped following that he launched his political career claiming that his predecessor was born in Kenya. To show the lasting impact his campaign had, thirty percent of Americans still believe him. It does not take rocket science to realize that that represents nearly the whole of his base. 

LIES DAMNED LIES 

The number, 8459, of what euphemistically are called false and misleading statements in less than two years, forces Jay H. Ell to go out on a limb by prophesying that that is a score that will never ever be beaten. For this historic achievement Trump will be remembered forever. 

The mendacious behavior was at its best, (worst?), in the October month before the midterms when the “lying” CNN reported that he was responsible for 1104 statements that were “untrue”. This was double the number of the previous “misstatements” the month before in September. This obviously reflected his anxiety of what his advisors were telling him, namely that he was about to receive a massive of vote of no confidence in the forthcoming elections. During that period he created a record that will stand for a long long time, 83 lies on October 22, 2018. This  occurred while addressing a crowd in Texas in support of the candidature of Senator Ted Cruz, whose father you might remember was involved in the Kennedy assassination. 

The most recent whoppers are centered around illegal immigration and include repeated “inaccurate” statistics as to the claims that Texas is a crime hub with the perpetrators being illegal immigrants. El Paso law enforcement are particularly livid that he authoritatively asserts that a wall has magically turned their city from criminal chaos into the Garden of Eden. His repeated assertion that 60 percent of women seeking asylum in the USA are raped in Mexico is unmitigated garbage. He has argued that this year alone illegal immigration has cost nearly 19 billion dollars and in one day alone the expenditure was over 603 million dollars - all untrue. Then he has upped the official number of “illegals” in the country from 11 million to 25 million.

When confronted with his “deceptions” he told ABC Anchor Jon Karl that, “I do try. I always want to tell the truth”.   However he told America how he really felt about those who report his inexactitudes. Speaking at one of his Nuremberg style rallies in July 2018 in Kansas, he pointed at the media and screamed, “Stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. What your’e seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening”. It should be salutary to Trump to note that the long time red Kansas Governorship turned blue under his watch. 

THE UNIMPEACHABLE PRESIDENT

Trump’s mastery of the Constitution like everything else is better than everybody else. He once again “reassured” the nation stating that it was impossible for him to be impeached. His argument was that he was such a successful President that how could they impeach him? You could only be impeached for High Crimes and Misdemeanors and by Trump’s definition the greatest President, could not commit those transgressions.  In the next sentence Trump then claimed that the only reason the Democrats would impeach him as they can’t beat him in 2020. 

THE “UNUSUAL’ PRESIDENT.

The New York Times with customary restraint called Trump’s behavior of contradicting and belittling his entire intelligence establishment and their carefully researched report, “unusual”. Trump tweeted that they were “wrong” and “should go back to school”.

What the Trump appointed Intelligence Chiefs including National Intelligence Director,Dan Coats, CIA Director, Gina Haspel and FBI Director, Christopher Wray researched and learned did not jive with the Commander in Chief. The relationship had nosedived when he humiliated the Intelligence Establishment by publicly supporting Putin’s “strong” denial over the unanimous Intelligence conclusion that Russia had interfered in the 2016 Presidential election.

So Trump claimed that he had sorted out the North Korean nuclear threat while his Intelligence claimed that there was no way that Kim Jong In would give up his nuclear arsenal as his government regards that as crucial to their survival. As far as Trump’s boast that he had eliminated ISIS the professionals said they remained a massive threat as there were thousands that are mingling with the crowd. The POTUS did not take kindly to the Intelligence that Iran was still sticking to the nuclear deal while cooperating with the other signatories to the pact and was not attempting to build nuclear capability. Trump’s gut was better than the whole Intelligence establishment.

This attacking of the 81 billion dollar Intelligence operation because it contradicts his simplistic foreign policy will not wash. In addition this has resulted in a rash of leaks about his "willful ignorance” on security issues. Trump’s vendetta against his own appointed intelligence chiefs is unprecedented and even insane. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The fact is that at the end of the day this was vintage Trump - superb delivery, excellent rhetoric, threats, red meat to the base and plenty of factual inaccuracies, particularly over the wall. This command performance will push up Trump’s poll numbers to over 40% by bringing back some of the base that had defected. However the speech will not have won back a single independent. 

Most importantly his address did not resolve the funding of the wall. In one week America can be facing another shut down or national emergency and then Trump could be facing bipartisan censure. Nor does he feel the pain of those who went through hell with no money for two pay periods. One wonders what it will take for those who believe that Obama was born in Kenya to abandon him. 

What would normally have been the major talking point of the evening - Trump’s failure to give the incoming Speaker his congratulations and then not allowing her to introduce him - passed unnoticed. The smallness and pettiness of the POTUS is so taken for granted that it does not elicit comment, even from the “fake News”. 

The biggest danger of Trumpism is in the security of this country. His combined security apparatus have rated Russia as the greatest threat to American democracy. As that finding doesn’t fit into his assessment of the world - tough luck. Lest it is forgotten, the FBI in May 2017 launched a counter intelligence investigation into whether the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, was a witting or unwitting Russian agent. 

The inescapable conclusion is that the state of Trump’s Union sucks. A fact that may well be expanded upon as the Democratic Congress ignores his threat and begins to investigate every aspect of his businesses, campaign and Presidency.