It took a lot of strength and determination. I wanted to give up numerous times. But I persevered — watching every damn minute of what turned out to be the longest State of the Union speech in our nation’s history, 1 hour and 47 minutes.
That broke the previous record, also set by Trump, which I think was 1 hour and 39 minutes. So I deserve a medal, especially since I was forced to sit through countless (almost) lies by Trump, along with his usual insults directed at Democrats like me.
Commentators had been wondering which Trump would show up at the State of the Union address: teleprompter Trump, who can sound halfway reasonable when he’s reading a speech written by other people, or rally Trump, who sounds batshit crazy when he blurts out whatever is passing through his increasingly addled mind.
Both sides of Trump were on display tonight.
At first I thought, this is going to be a boring and fairly coherent speech. But I wondered how long Trump could keep that up. Not much longer, it turned out. Because I had to grab a piece of paper and jot down some blatant lies that echoed Trump’s usual remarks at rallies and so-called “press briefings,” which have turned into Trump calling on right-wing influencers who ask him softball questions.
Here’s some of the Trump lies. I stopped jotting them down, because I ran out of paper.
— Tariffs are paid by foreign countries. No, tariffs are paid by the American companies importing foreign goods. Often those companies pass on some or all of that cost to Americans who buy the goods.
— Tariffs could replace the federal income tax. Extremely unlikely. The only way this could happen is if tariffs, which are a tax on imports, were set so high American businesses and American consumers paid a tariff tax rather than an income tax. Of course, if that happened, imports would drop massively, causing the tariff tax revenue to dry up.
— Prices are plummeting downward. False, Prices are still increasing, albeit at a rate under 3%. The price of some things has gone down after Trump was elected; the price of some things has increased. On the whole, the Consumer Price Index is still going up.
— Trump has announced a health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. Nope. He’s been talking about this since his first term as president. There’s still just the “concept of a plan.” Like not subsidizing insurance plan premiums, but giving money to individuals to buy insurance plans. Even that is a long way from becoming reality, and it wouldn’t do anything to reduce health care costs.
— Prescription drug prices in the U.S. are the lowest in the world. No way. We pay much more for prescriptions than other wealthy countries. All Trump has done is set up a TrumpRx web site that allows some drugs to be bought from manufacturers at their usual discounted/hardship price,
— Ending corruption of federal programs in Minnesota, California, and other blue states will balance the federal budget. Impossible, especially since the Biden administration had already investigated the corruption in Minnesota, and there’s little or no evidence of massive fraud elsewhere.
— Trump ended eight wars. Actually, he hasn’t ended any. Israel is still attacking Gaza, and Hamas hasn’t disarmed. Little, if any, progress is happening with negotiations to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And Trump is threatening to attack Iran for having a nuclear program that Trump claimed was totally obliterated in a U.S. strike last summer.
Later in Trump’s speech, he was full on into rally mode where he insults Democrats and anyone else who resists his lies and authoritarianism.
He called for Congress to pass a voting suppression bill and ban most mail-in voting, falsely claiming that there is massive voter fraud. Trump said that the only way Democrats get elected is to cheat. He looked at the Democrat side of the State of the Union audience and said “these people are crazy” when Democrats didn’t stand and applaud a controversial statement he’d made. Trump said “Democrats are destroying the country.”
Bizarrely, near the end of his speech Trump spoke about a Firat Lady endeavor that Melania is conducting, saying that it has bipartisan support and lamenting “I get no bipartisan support.” Gosh, he should listen to himself if he wonders why. This came just a few minutes after Trump told the nation that Democrats only win if they cheat, are crazy, and are destroying the country.
On the plus side, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger gave a great Democratic response to the State of the Union speech. Watch it via this You Tube video. She only spoke for 13 minutes, and you won’t have to endure any lies, just the truth about why Democrats are better suited to serve Americans than Trump and the Republican Party.
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