For the first time in probably 35-40 years, I did not watch the State of the Union address last night. Why? Because I have heard President Trump speak about all of the issues during the last 10 years over and over. Nothing changes. I was 99% confident that he would simply repeat all of his same demagoguery that I’ve heard hundreds of times. All of the reporting on it and the clips that I have watched confirm my suspicions…he stood up there in front of the world and served the same lies, exaggerations, and divisive nonsense that he has been spewing for the past 10 years.
In his delusional world, the state of the union has NEVER been better, and it is all entirely due to him.
I’m not going to go through, point by point, and detail all of the lies…there are plenty of fact checks out there for people to find. Rather, I’m just going to comment on how I see the current state of the union.
The state of our union is such that:
- We are falling further and further into an authoritarian regime while a way too sizable 35-40% of our citizens cheer it on.
- We are more divided as a nation than at any time since the Civil War.
- The President of the United States relishes in, and deliberately incites, that division.
- The President of the United States disregards the laws that the Congress has passed, as well as the rulings that the Supreme Court has made.
- The Republican members of Congress, both in the House and the Senate, have abdicated their Constitutional duties and allow the President to do whatever he wants, refusing to uphold their oaths of office by holding the President accountable for anything, including his probable involvement in the biggest child sex trafficking scandal in the nation’s history, which he is actively covering up.
- The President of the United States continually lies with impunity about every issue he is involved with.
- The President of the United States is, on a daily basis, using his power to go after his political opponents is various ways, including attempts to prosecute them, withholding funds from “blue” states and cities, sending in his federal law enforcement to “blue” cities and states, essentially terrorizing and creating chaos that has resulted in many citizens deaths and unlawful arrests in order to pressure them to comply with his political agenda.
- The President of the United States is blatantly stealing the nation’s money in various ways, including ridiculously suing the IRS for $10 billion (which he has the power to “settle” rather than having a court decide).
- The President of the United States is blowing up boats in international waters killing hundreds of people, claiming, with no evidence presented to congress or the American people, that these are drug-smuggling terrorists.
- The President of the United States has invaded a sovereign nation, detained its leader, and taken control of its resources (oil), whisking away the money (billions of dollars) made from selling the oil and putting it into offshore accounts that he alone controls.
- The President has pledged $10 billion of our nation’s money to an organization that he created (the Board of Peace) and that he made himself the Chairman of, and whose members mostly consist of other authoritarian leaders of the world. He, as chairman, will personally control the money and he, as chairman, will personally appoint his successor, essentially ensuring that his family will maintain control of that organization and the money forever…sort of like a King, one might say.
- The President of the United States has created his own corrupt enrichment scheme in the form of crypto coins, where anyone in the world (authoritarian leaders of other countries, for example) can buy into it anonymously, which has increased his own personal net worth by at least $3 billion in just his first year in office for this term and opened up the likely scenario of him selling access and favors.
- The President of the United States has seemingly used his pardoning power as a money-making engine.
- The President of the United States is disrupting all of our trade partnerships, resulting in our former partners seeking products and services elsewhere and destroying all good will between us and the rest of the free world that will take decades to repair.
- The President of the United States is threatening our long-time allies while cozying up to the authoritarians of the world.
- The President of the United States believes that only the people who voted for him are real Americans. Everyone else are radical, lunatic, domestic terrorists that deserve imprisonment and even death, as he called for in the case of 6 sitting Democrat congressmembers who did nothing remotely illegal. He had his Justice Department attempt to prosecute them anyway.
I could literally go on and on with this for another hundred+ things.
And yet, here we are, where he is subjecting the American people to the longest ever State of the Union address, with the President of the United States acting more like an emcee of a variety show than the leader of the free world, and one of the 2 political parties standing and cheering every blatant lie while claiming that the other party looks foolish for not joining them. But who are the real fools?
So where will all of this lead? How far will President Trump be allowed to go in his march to authoritarianism? He has already:
- Demanded his political enemies be prosecuted, including calling for them to be put to death for treason.
- Created his own domestic law enforcement force in the form of immigration law enforcement officers who are being trained to act aggressively and without accountability while being masked and unidentifiable.
- Described entire vulnerable communities as less than human, not worthy of being in the United States (whether they are citizens or not), scapegoating immigrants, refugees, LGBTQ+ people, religions he is not in favor of, etc.
- Described his political opponents as enemies of the state.
- Created massive detention facilities that can handle 10’s of thousands of detainees, purportedly designated for violent illegal immigrants, but could certainly be used for “others”.
- Attacked sovereign nations and threatens to take over others, including arguably our “best friend” and ally Canada, Greenland, Cuba, Mexico, Columbia…on top of him being on the verge of going to war with Iran.
- Has grabbed people off of the streets and shipped them off to brutal foreign prisons with no due process, many of them having no criminal background whatsoever.
- Has deployed masked immigration officers to roam our streets demanding people to show their documents for no other reason than they don’t look like or sound like they “belong”. If they can’t immediately show their documents, they haul them away and imprison them, giving them no opportunity to even call their family or an attorney for days or longer.
These are all extremely urgent and troubling warning signs that way too many people are either unaware of, ignoring, or in full support of.
And I’ve barely even scratched the surface.
Suffice it to say that I don’t think the state of our union has ever been worse in my lifetime. The state of our union is not good, and certainly is not Great, no matter how many times President Trump tells you it is. The very fact that half of the people in the country actually see what I see is evidence enough of that. Pretending that it is better than ever because the stock market hit 50,000, or the gas price is lower than it was when Biden was in office, or the trains are running on time…while ignoring the obvious attempted authoritarian takeover of our nation is only going to lead us to much worse.
