President Trump just used his State of the Union message to call Joe Biden “the worst President in the history of the United States.”
I wasn’t going to watch any of the speech, both because I dreaded what excesses Trump would inflict on his audience and the behavior of the Democrats. But I just couldn’t resist tuning in: the Netflix series I was watching stunk, so I switched over to DirecTV and landed on NBC for literally 20 seconds, maybe fewer. And what did I hear but the President talking about the success of his border crackdown and then insulting his predecessor. I instantly turned off the TV and went to my office to post this.
There was no need to say what Trump said, and no excuse for it. It was just gratuitously nasty, graceless, divisive and hateful. It was historic though, so maybe progressives will be impressed.
No President has used that traditional speech to denigrate a predecessor, and few have used any Presidential speech to insult a previous White House occupant. Presidents, more than anybody, understand the rigors of the job and are expected to convey at least a modicum of respect for the other members of the select group who have taken on the daunting challenge of leading this chaotic, ambitious, essential nation.
I say this with full understanding that Trump’s assessment of Joe Biden was accurate: Ethics Alarms came to the same conclusion over more than a year of analysis. That doesn’t make Trump’s outburst any more forgivable. Trump’s insult sprung from nothing but the worst of his character: cruelty, vengefulness, lack of self-control, immodesty, crudeness. It also, again, showed the President’s astoundingly flat learning curve: his similarly gratuitous attacks in the past made lifetime enemies out of the late John McCain, the entire Bush family, and the Cheneys, with no compensating benefits. He likes upsetting people.
It is the mark of an asshole.
Ethics Alarms 
And I felt the same and the same as yourself. Take care and be safe
What kind of person wouldn’t cringe at that???
He shouldn’t have said it, even if it is true. That said, Al Green didn’t achieve much by getting himself thrown out, and Biden’s speeches bashing half of America just set the precedent for this kind of thing.
Obama set the precedent as the first president to ever treat Americans with a divisive “some of us are good” and “others are bad” rhetoric.
The way to stop something inappropriate from being a precedent is to isolate it rather than escalate…as you know.
Correct. I just wanted to be clear that even in Biden’s fecklessness he isn’t the one who actively inaugurated the wretchedness of modern presidents.
Agreed. I told my wife that President Trump was being “overly aggressive” towards the Democratic Party in his speech. Some of that aggression is completely deserved based on how they have treated him…and are treating him tonight, but yeah, calling President Biden “the worst President” was an insult too far.
We are firmly in Julie Principle territory with President Trump.
…and then a reference to “Pocahontas”…ugh…
Well, she was the one who said that nasty women were going to get rid of him. She’s also the one who claimed heritage she did not possess. I really hate it when people who can dish it out can’t take it.
Yeah, Steve, but the State of the Union message is not the place to have to “take it.”
I really did only listen for a few seconds, so I missed that. I second your “ugh.” Using grade-school taunts is marginally better than his unethical quote of the week, but not by much.
I did not watch because our political leaders have devolved into cretins.
I tuned in for less than twenty seconds and when I heard Trump stating that no matter what he did he would be ridiculed. Then the camera panned the members of Congress where Democrats came prepared to silently jeer him with the Musk Steals and False signs. That was enough for me to know that this was probably not going to go well.
The unethical behavior of both sides is an embarrassment. However, the gratuitously nasty, graceless, divisive and hateful rhetoric Trump has endured by the organized left and its Congressional enablers will wear on anyone’s patience.
It was wrong to label Biden as the worst president ever because I don’t believe he made any decisions. Our policies were crafted probably by Ron Klain and Jill Biden along with a host of lobbyists making the decisions during 2021-24.
The meeting with Zelenskyy was not a global embarrassment as so many have stated but this was and every elected person there shares some blame.
I wonder how many tens of thousands of my hard-earned dollars were “invested” into those signs.
My initials thoughts on President Trump’s speech (minus the things already discussed here):
Overall, not his best work…by a substantial margin.
He started off pretty well, rising above the taunting shenanigans of the Democratic Party by simply remaining silent and/or turning away while Speaker Johnson dealt with the outbursts. But it didn’t take long for him to begin responding in kind to what Democrats were doing. There were way too many descriptions of his opposition and the previous administration as “incompetent”…or other similar adjectives. That’s completely unnecessary. Even Democrats know President Biden was incompetent…it’s why they worked so tirelessly to hide it until they couldn’t. They also knew VP Harris was incompetent…it’s why they worked so tirelessly to hide that, too. The previous Administration was rapidly sinking into embarrassing obscurity on its own as more and more of its people began revealing what really went on in “Admin-46”. Why risk making it a martyr by demonizing it?!?
The speech itself was somewhat meandering as is his style, with lots of hyperbole – phrases like “this has never been seen before” or “the most ever in history” or “the greatest in history”. That is the typical delivery style of President Trump and that phrasing should simply be ignored by all listeners.
There have been numerous accomplishments in these first weeks – most notably the border and the initial ferreting out of the horrible waste. He was very right to highlight all of those.
The last five minutes were very aspirational, but after almost 90 minutes of clapping every 20 seconds interspersed with trolling the Democratic Party (which by the way, President Trump has honed to a fine art), I was ready for it to be over. It was too long and a bit too disjointed for my tastes. No Peggy Noonan is his speech-writer.
I should go back and find a SOTU speech from Reagan and/or Clinton. Those men – whether you like them or not – could speak with dignity and class, inspiring listeners.
How different I would feel had the speech’s content not changed one iota, but instead of engaging the Democrats on their level – and on two occasions, below it – he would have simply delivered his message without denigrating Democrats. That would have been humiliating to them, since their sole purpose was to goad him into acting exactly as he did, thereby providing CNN, et al with weeks of footage soundbites to criticize.
Then usher the two boys into the Secret Service and West Point, stay above what his opposition was doing, and say goodnight. He would have looked VERY Presidential.
Do the Democrats deserve to be excoriated? Absolutely. Should that have happened on a public “SOTU-esque” platform? Absolutely not.
And in my opinion, the first person the President should fire this morning is his speech writer.
And yet I heard over and over again from Republicans and conservatives that this was the best speech Trump has ever given…admittedly a low bar.
I thought the President’s last SOTU speech in 2020 (the one Speaker Pelosi went all gangsta on) was better than this one. And I thought his inauguration speech in January was better. It was more diplomatic while still being cutting and there was less hyperbole, which generally drives me nuts.
Let’s face it, the President is a showman, having cut his teeth in the appallingly bad arena of reality TV. He’s several degrees above the coarseness level of Gordon Ramsey, but he knows how to play the game.
I watched the entire speech yesterday, and was a a bit surprised about this post as I completely missed that detail in the speech. So I am not going to nitpick on this detail, as I do not think this is the most important takeaway from the SOTU event.
Here are my thoughts:
In politics values and results appear to matter more than ethics. Maybe this should be rephrased as in politics the main ethical thing is to do is to govern the country well, and matters of decorum is only subservient to that goal. The Republican party of Paul Ryan, John Boehner, and Mitt Romney did not understand that reality, as they were fighting according to the rules of the Marquess of Queensbury by practicing comity and decorum to a fault, while the Democrats were playing for keeps using tactics like race baiting and Borking. The Republicans under Trump have turned the script, with more success.
Politics is a bizarro world, like war. And in this bizarro world probably ethics works different than in the normal world. I prefer to retain perspective and focus on what is best for the country, and not fuss about every hard statement that comes out of Trump’s mouth. After all that has been said about and done to Trump and his supporters, some hard words are at their place.
“I do not think this is the most important takeaway from the SOTU event.”
Oh, clearly not, but in most SOTUs it would be. That moment was the only part of last night I saw live.
A cheap shot? Maybe. Pocahontas? Yeah, dumb and unpresidential.
Yet, the Democrats looked petty, juvenile, and ridiculous, if not partisanly cruel to Trump’s guests. I didn’t think Al Green could do dumber things than he did last night but getting thrown out/removed because he wouldn’t shut up or sit down after being ordered to by the Speaker was an embarrassment for Texas and the House, only for him to justify because he thinks Trump is going to crater Medicaid or Medicare or some such thing. What a fool.
Yet, the Democrats looked more than awful when they would not applaud or even acknowledge the ceremonial induction of a teenager cancer patient into the Secret Service* or a guy’s acceptance into West Point or the parent of a 12 year girl killed by vicious Latin American gang members or the family of a slain firefighter killed protecting his wife and daughters at a Butler campaign rally or a teenage girl injured when a male masquerading as a girl volleyball player spiked the ball with such force it broke her face and caused permanent brain damage. Shameful and stupid.
Were I running 2026 campaigns, I would put together those visuals and run them non-stop, especially showing Sen. Warren with her face buried in her phone and Rashida Tlaib holding up her stupid little signs and Sen Sanders storming out of the Chamber in a great farcical show of contempt.
jvb
*Ed. Note: That fellow’s reaction to the induction was priceless. His eyes went dinner plate wide open in surprise. But, the Democrats were cruel. How can they justify their contempt for a teenager who has already had 13 brain surgeries? Unforgivable. So, forgive me if the “Biden is the worst . . .” or “Pocahontas” comments don’t leave me writhing with outrage at Trump’s juvenile insults.
It is rather amazing at how many ‘adults’ in the audience last night have not yet learned how to behave in polite society. But I’m glad they did because they expose just how immature and ill informed they really are. And I ask myself this question just about every day – how the hell did these people get themselves elected in the first place?
On the flip side I’ll paraphrase an Abraham Lincoln quote, which I wish Mr. Trump would take to heart at many times:
‘Better to remain silent and be thought an asshole than to speak and to remove all doubt.’
‘Better to remain silent and be thought an asshole than to speak and to remove all doubt.’
I would like to question that statement as I do not think it is wrong or unethical to be an asshole. There are two elements to being an asshole a) the person referred to exhibits behavior or has a personality that is considered that is considered disagreeable b) said behavior or personality is subjectively valued negatively, is not liked or appreciated.
None of this entails a moral or ethical judgement. Agreeableness is one of the five big personality dimensions in the OCEAN model (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism), and personality just is, without any moral judgment attached. At best we can say that there are downsides to the extremes on the spectra of each dimension. But every downside has an upside too. E.g. being extremely agreeable may indicate that a person is a pushover who as a result is unable to meet important life goals, e.g. marry a wife who respects him, or be successful in his career. Being disagreeable may be necessary for entrepreneurs who want to realize their vision (e.g. Steve Jobs with Apple is a prime example), and also for trial lawyers and politicians.
There are people I do not like, e.g. they do not act in my personal best interest, or because their mannerisms bother me. Again no personal judgment attached, as you cannot like everyone, and a person who wants to be liked by everyone is a people pleaser, and often seen as insincere.
The main issue is whether Trump’s asshole behavior works against him, or to his political benefit (and to the benefit of the USA). Given Trump’s accomplishments so far, and where his political opponents are now I think the answer is clear.
But if you’ve removed all doubt already and long ago, what have you got to lose? It must be liberating, and I say this as someone many feel has removed all similar doubt regarding me.
Only possible justification would be it as payback for the insults hurled by Biden to Trump during his own presidential speeches. This would be reasonable game theory (and very crude utilitarian ethics) in the sense of an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma where tit-for-tat is the best possible strategy (and usually the only way to force a defector to back off); but the iterations take four years, so there’s no way it works in this scenario.
Thank you for reminding me about game theory, as I have some plans to write an article for this blog about the implication of game theory for biology and ethics; this may take me a while.
There are always some challenges in applying a theory like game theory directly to politics. My impression from Trump’s address to congress is that is was politically effective; we do not have wait four years to see how this speech works, as Trump emerged from the event as a clear winner, and the Democrats as a clear loser; the reactions in the media, and by the opposition almost speak for themselves.
You also make an assumption about Trump’s long term political goals. The ultimate goal of the tit-for-tat strategy is to move your opponent into a cooperative strategy. However Trump’s goal may be to simply keep defeating the Democrats in elections, and keeping the Democrats pinned in their self-created hell may be one way to accomplish that. So political strategy is always more complicated than a simple theory in a math book suggests; in math books there are two players, but in politics the electorate and the media are players too.
Agree with all your points, real life is always messier than any model we make of it (“All models are wrong, some are useful”). Looking forward to reading your contribution with the guest post.
You are right, of course, Jack. It is far more powerful to take the high road, to be professional, dignified, courteous.
AND the opposition has called him every name in the book – racist, bigot, *.phobe, misogynist, rapist, convicted felon …… AND they lie shamelessly about his thoughts, words, intentions and deeds. They shot him.
So on a purely gut level I am inclined to give him a bit of a pass. He shouldn’t have been rude, but bless his heart, he is NOT a saint.