Narcissist would- be autocrat Donald "Rump" Trump's State of the Union (disclaimer: we didn't watch it!) caused fact checkers some tsuris (please go to the links for the full accounting):
Associated Press fact checkers:
Boastful even within the traditional confines of a State of the Union speech, President Donald Trump inflated the impact of his tax cuts Tuesday night, declared an end to a “war” on energy that did not exist when he took office and displayed a faulty grasp of immigration policy.The Washington Post fact checkers:
President Trump’s State of the Union speech had soaring rhetoric — and many dubious facts and figures. Many of these claims have been fact-checked repeatedly, yet the president persists in using them.Beyond the lies and distortions, there was the typical divisive Rump:
Trump was still in the first minute of his speech — 72 words from the start — when he belted out his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Republicans roared. It was the first of several cultural wedges Trump would drive through the chamber over the next hour — pitting immigrants against “Americans,” trumpeting his support for the Second Amendment but no other, and reviving racially charged disputes he ignited over the past year. [snip]
... Trump offered every manner of barb, in a performance that stirred the very enmity he professed a wish to overcome. “We repealed the core of the disastrous Obamacare,” he boasted, generating glares from Democrats but perhaps the biggest roar of the night on the GOP side.
When he said “we proudly stand for the national anthem” — a reference to black NFL players who have protested by taking a knee — there was a lusty roar from the GOP side and wan looks from Democrats. Trump applauded the cheering Republicans.The Washington Post editorial board wasn't fooled either (unlike its front page headline writer):
HAVE A president’s words ever rung more hollow? In his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Trump spoke of “what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people and one American family.” Yet Mr. Trump could not avoid, even for an hour, lacing his address with divisive references to hot-button issues and graceless attacks on his predecessors: to “disastrous Obamacare,” “the mistakes of past administrations,” “the era of economic surrender” and more.
More to the point, he offered little reason to hope that his second-year policies would be more constructive than those of his first...Charles P. Pierce on the spectacle that occurred last night:
All involved had to pretend that Donald Trump makes sense as a president, that his administration makes sense as a government, and that his first State of the Union address made sense as either a description of national policy, or as a rhetorical summons to national unity. All involved had to pretend that his thoughts were coherent, that his words made sense, and that the complete and universal collapse of civic responsibility that propelled him onto the podium was not the most singularly destructive event in the history of American democracy since the Civil War. Everyone had to pretend that a freak show was Shakespeare, and that a rumbling, stumbling geek was Lincoln, and that the whole tableau unfolding before the Congress was somehow made noble despite the obvious fact that the whole event was an endless procession of lies and half-truths, and that the only truly remarkable thing about the speech was that it was such a perfectly round and complete crock of shit.A few pithy tweets to close things up:
I went to the #SOTU. I wanted it burned into my eyes. If there’s ever a moment when I’m too tired to keep fighting, I just have to close my eyes & see @realDonaldTrump , @mike_pence & @pryan applauding themselves for punching working families in the gut, & I'm back in this fight.— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) January 31, 2018
Congratulations. Everyone who watched this entire speech is now the same age as me. Best of luck.— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) January 31, 2018
Contrary to expectations, we haven't heard much in the way of the "he became President tonight" bullshit from otherwise sentient pundits (Van Jones went out of his way to excoriate Rump, in fact). A low bar for journalists seems to have been largely passed. For the moment. (Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog noticed the same thing.)
(Photo: Il Douche and two of his stooges)
