I was gobsmacked that no Democrat present had the common sense and solid political instincts to think, “Wait…our party can’t appear to to oppose that framing of the issue!” All it took was one non-Deranged Democrat who could think on his or her feet to lead the hateful mob in the room to a grudging ovation, or even to break the image of every single member of the party appearing to choose non-citizens over Americans, for Trump’s stratagem to fail. And yet they couldn’t do it.
A bit later, the President pointed out the obviously distressed mother of the young Ukrainian refugee murdered last year in this horrific incident
and promised to prevent such an atrocity happening to anyone else. Again, Republicans cheered and Democrats sat silent. Who could disagree when the President observed later in his marathon speech, referring to the Democrats, “These people are crazy, I’m telling you”?
The Times, joining in the Axis whistling concert, wrote, “Almost palpable was the growing sense in Washington that the Republicans will not be in control of that room by the time they all get together to do this number next year. If things keep going the way they are now, it won’t be Speaker Mike Johnson smiling serenely over Mr. Trump’s left shoulder.”
This is called “confirmation bias,” and bias makes you stupid. It has certainly made Democrats stupid, and the growing sense that I had watching the speech was uncannily similar to the sense I had watching the Vice-Presidential debate in 2024. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
If I had to headline this column using the familiar Ethics Alarms designation, it would be “Incompetent Elected Officials of the Year: Congressional Democrats.” Can they get away with broadcasting their incompetence coast-to-coast?
We shall see.
Ethics Alarms 
“…unless Republicans are even more incompetent than I already think they are…”
I’m sorry Jack, but I think that’s a well with no bottom right there.
The only things that matter about the SOTU-
How many people watched it?
How many of those people are persuadable voters?
How many persuadable voters did not watch it?
The pics of all the dems refusing to stand for protecting Americans or mothers of those murdered by illegals will see plenty of use in upcoming elections. Those may not have been planned by Trump as traps, but the dems stupidly fell in, and it will cost them.
Every SOTU since Obama has been a campaign rally designed to trap the opposition into looking petty and hateful.
They wouldn’t stand for the veterans or hockey team either. It was wild.
Watching the Democrats in Congress during SOTU I was wondering whether they are on Team America? And looking at the graph below I have the same feeling about the base of the Democrat Party. My impression is that the Democrats are more globalist and internationalist than patriotic. That is why Democrats are unwilling to applaud for successes of their own nation.
Tlaib and Omar may have American passports, but they are not in the first place American; they are Somali and Palestinian first.
I have similar observations about some of the players at the Olympic Games in Italy for whom sexual orientation and gender trumps national identity, and who barely could contain their sense of embarrassment over the President and his policies.
Europe has this problem too, e.g. the UK has this in a most pronounced way as the Starmer administration shows more deference for Islam and asylum seekers than for British citizens, and where waving the Union Jack is seen as showing extreme right sympathies.
I am very worried about the mid term elections. Will the happy days be over in November? The Biden administration did not give the USA a lot to be proud of. The woke messaging of the left indicated that being American is a source of shame, because of racism and slavery, and Western culture is a source of shame due to colonialism and imperialism.
CVB wrote: “My impression is that the Democrats are more globalist and internationalist than patriotic.”
In Jack’s other post on the Bernie Sanders nonsense, Steve Witherspoon wrote an excellent analysis about socialism and propaganda. Steve does a great job exploring Leftist propaganda and its impact on the Democrat party. I was going to make this same comment there but I believe you have covered it here very well.
If the Democrats see themselves as globalists/internationalists, then that belief system takes priority over patriotism and nationalism (if I am allowed to use that is a “my country’s interests first” sort of way). The Democrat/socialist position is that the U.S. or Great Britain or Canada are not any different or better than any other country – they are simply countries in the grander scheme of the community of nations all aiming for the goal of justice, prosperity, and progress. In fact, they would conclude that western countries clinging to their histories or heritage are impeding progress toward a peaceful global order. That position will defer to the U.N., international tribunals, and subsume sovereignity to global agendas.
A Bernie Sanders, then, would necessarily deem decrees from the U.N. on the Israel-Palestine disaster as morally superior to Israel’s right to self-defense and statehood. Sanders would also conclude that indigenous peoples should be compensated for centuries of conquest because Western European powers subjugated them under their will. That is why U.S athletes decided it was appropriate to make moral pronouncements from Milan about U.S. immigration enforcement policy or refused to don Old Glory to celebrate their victories. That is also why they would revile the U.S. men’s hockey team for accepting to meet with Trump and appear at the SOTU address as opposed to complaining that this is a bad time for transathletes (whatever that means . . .)
jvb
The memes are writing themselves.
I agree. I think there is a deep philosophical divide about the nature of government, borders, etc. Republicans believe in tradtional nation states, while much of the left now is global, as you say. The left seems like they would be happier if they just moved to Europe. They have the speech codes, open borders, etc.
CNN had a focus group that prior to the SOTU address 54% said Trump policies were thanking us in the right direction. Following the speech 64% of the focus group felt that way. Whether that is representative of the broader electorate is anyone’s guess but it should make the administration happy
taking not thanking. Damn AI
Jack, I’m sorry to be such a fatalist, but my sense is that the American voting public is just too inundated with Democrat-friendly and Trump-hate messaging for the ridiculous behavior of the Democrats to get through. The signal/noise ratio is just too low, and the level of disinterest and outright stupidity is too high. They get their news from Facebook, BlueSky, MSNBC and CNN.
All we have to do is look to Mississippi, which despite being one of the poorest states in the country has a reading comprehension score higher than that of California, New York, and Illinois. States paying almost twice as much per student have worse scores than one of the poorest states in the country because the kids are being used as foils to get more money for the teacher’s unions.
Basic education is not only secondary, but due to the woke politics in these states, actually undesirable unless it is social-justice related. And we all know it is racist to hold kids to anything but the very lowest common denominator.
People that can’t read cannot possibly develop critical thinking skills. They are essentially mushrooms, waiting for the stream of feces from the traditional media to feed them. Too many of our voting age adults are the result of this system, which is why the Left will doubtless take the midterms, possibly both houses of Congress.
Sure President Trump wielded some nifty ways of shoving his thumb deep in the eyes of congressional Democrats who have figuratively earned a whole lot more than that; but personally, I’m completely disgusted by the entire clown show partisan spectacle. Will we ever get beyond this crap?