The role of the President of the United States is not typically occupied by a showman. You could gesture at various prior inhabitants of the office – Andrew Jackson mounting his horse and standing between cannon and the Tennessee militia, Teddy Roosevelt surviving charge and shot to become more myth than man, Barack Obama levitating above us all as a biracial angel sent from on high to cleanse all our sins – but no one has seized that motivating spirit more mightily than Donald J. Trump, the ultimate television producer. He watches it all, and he knows what the people want: more, more, and more.
They don’t want a speech. They want a show. At the State of the Union, he gave them their show, all that while trading barbs with a heckling crew of gesticulating idiots, whose political acumen has aged so poorly that they did not even realize that sitting on their hands would grant the president and his party the best midterm advertising fodder they could ever have. “A billion dollar ad!” one consultant texted me. Republicans are going to need it come midterm time – and Democrats could’ve easily avoided giving it away with a lick of common sense.
In days past, you had Joe Manchin and a handful of red state Democrat House members standing and applauding coal or cops or dead terrorists. This time around, Trump himself couldn’t help but break the script to comment: “These people are crazy.” Yes, it’s the kind of thing you might hear from your uncle watching Fox News. But it’s not wrong! It’s a reason Trump won, and a reason his party might keep winning.
“How can you not stand for that?” the president said, giving running commentary on his own speech, gesturing toward the sparse but diligently seated Democrats to his right. How hard is it to applaud respectfully for at least some of Trump’s speech as a Democrat? It shouldn’t be hard at all. Illegal immigrants aren’t the reason you ran for office. Your first priority should be your citizens. You can’t honestly claim that the world isn’t a safer place with a hamstrung Iran nuclear program, a Nicolas Maduro in custody, and a narco regime to our south hemmed in by military forces. All these are policies many Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, claimed to support before in some form. Is it really going to end their career to admit Trump is right about even one thing?
You get the hint of how far things have gone in the response from Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, who went all the way to Williamsburg to speak to the nation from the very stodgy and very fake replica House of Burgesses. The original, where Patrick Henry did his very problematic liberty thing, burned down twice. The one she was speaking to you from was built in the 1930s by the Rockefellers. And her speech had a similar flavor to it: applause that sounded clipped and rinsed, and delivery that was robotic and circular with an odd “did Gemini help write this?” rhythm. What’s more, she herself seemed to catch at certain lines of critique. You mean to tell me that Spanberger, a veteran CIA agent, thinks killing terrorists and pressuring Iran is… bowing to China and Russia? Don’t insult our intelligence, Abigail. Not even you believe what you’re saying at this point, you’re just vying to be Gavin Newsom’s Number Two.
The State of the Union is a storied tradition that should remain just that: the stuff of stories, past, written down and shelved. It is wholly unnecessary. The whole thing could just be an email. Except – and this is where Trump comes in – that the best moments in it were created by people who had nothing at all to do with politics or his policies.
When he flashed on the screen in the early going, Royce Williams was nothing to look at – a diminutive military veteran, seated next to the First Lady for reasons unbeknownst to the crowd. But I, and likely many others watching, recognized the man as the great unheralded hero of a forgotten war – the man who took down four MiGs, the terrorizer of Soviets, a century old legend. The headlines and pictures tomorrow will probably focus on the young heroic hockey team that brought Olympic Gold to the United States for the first time in 46 years. But Royce Williams, the man whose mission made him unappreciated for so long, finally getting his due? That’s the real tearjerker. That’s what a showman pulls off. And that’s who Donald Trump is.
Early returns indicate his speech worked. A poll from CNN found the number of Americans who think Trump’s policies will move the country in the right direction went up by 10% among people who watched his speech.
Fortunately for Republicans, Trump is very good at this. Unfortunately for Republicans, he’s basically all they’ve got. And like it or not – he’s not on the ballot any more. Time to wake up to reality, GOP: the reality of a future without your champion at the lead.
