I was appalled and disgusted by the number of presumably loyal citizens who didn’t watch the State of the Union Address on February 5, 2019. Where was the respect for the highest office in the land?
There were mitigating circumstances.
A number of the absentees were still asleep from the Stupor Bowl thriller two days earlier.
The nation also was in the midst of an outbreak of dreaded acute Trumpitis. After 690 days into the administration of the best president we have one third of the nation was recovering from a previous attack of the malady, one third was following doctors’ orders to limit exposure to the bug, and one third is wondering what the fuck I’m talking about. Watching the president on TV, as previously warned in these pages, can cause acute stomach pains and nausea. Public health advocates believe his appearances should be added to the FDA list of the most dangerous and addictive substances. There is no known cure, other than abstinence.
It turned out that only 43 percent of the nation’s Republicans actually watched the 2019 address, according to a CBS poll. I was one of them. Feeling like a designated viewer for the no-shows in my crowd, as a public service, I prepared the following report.
With all due respect, the eighty-two-minute SOTU, the third-longest in history, was offal. It was the most boring State of the Union, since the last one, a pep rally without the pep. I fell asleep three times during the first half when he was taking credit as the Great Unifier.
By the time he was listing his achievements in foreign policy, it reminded me of those speeches politburo members gave to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where the importance of a speech was measured by its length and how many vodka toasts could interrupt it.
Nevertheless, it was a valuable learning experience. You got to see and hear what our boy sounds like when he is nervous.
What could he possibly be nervous about? Well, it could be the six witch hunts being launched by the new, unimproved (in his unbiased opinion) House of Representatives with its Democratic majority, those “partisan, ridiculous investigations,” as he called them, any one of which could throw his children in the clink, or his impeachment, either or both.
Beyond “the unlimited presidential harassment,” as he calls congressional oversight of the executive branch, as required by the Constitution, is the final report by the Mueller team. Despite his “nyet collusion” assurances, who knows if the Mueller people found a president listed in the KGB payroll as “Agent Orange”?
Furthermore, the un-American crazed Democratic witch hunters, believers in the political science “follow the money” principle, are starting to work on finding the greatest business genius’ missing tax filings. The search for the Holy Grail is easier.
Following the rubles may raise questions about the remarkable number of Russian kleptocrats with ties to Putin who have bought condos in Trump Organization properties in New York and Miami. The family is said to have already earned $300 million off the top on penthouse suites sold to the oligarchy even before the billion-dollar, one-hundred-story fabulous Trump Tower in Moscow is built. All of this may be coincidental.
In an apparent digest version of his Twitter communiqués that year, the president’s SOTU addressed the economy, tax reform, immigration problems, Venezuela, ISIS, Afghanistan, veterans, the need for unity, and savage M-13 gangs. The only thing left out might have been updates on his love affair with Putin.
My favorite part of the speech was the president’s going nuclear in his attack on the menace of SOCIALISM!
I knew what he meant. I grew up in the days when my Republican Party leaders used to denounce FDR’s New Deal as pure socialism or impure socialism, I forget which. Either way, it kept me awake at night as a kid worrying about the Social Security evil that would bankrupt the nation by the time I got to use my contributions.
And who in my greatest generation will ever forget the dreaded AMA (American Medical Association) warnings about socialistic medicine—Medicare! The evil was equally denounced by the super-patriotic NAM (National Association of Manufacturers).
As Donald the Red raved on about the dangers of socialism, I could almost hear the cheers breaking out in the Kremlin TV den:
“USA . . . USA . . . USA.”
Or maybe it was:
“USSR . . . USSR . . . USSR.”
No presidential appearance on TV would be complete without “the wall thing.” There are those who say the president’s fixation on the wall as the final solution to immigration reform makes him seem like un pendejo (Spanish slang for “idiot”). They ignore the symbolic content of his obsession.
If only the best president we have would take the advice of Prof. Nick Johnson of the University of Iowa College of Law, who proposes that a big beautiful wall on the Southern border be built out of Legos. “A simple, fair, humane, cheaper solution,” argues Prof. Johnson. “Legos are a staple in every American home, often under foot. All real Americans would be willing to donate their surplus used Legos, which would keep the nation as safe as any other more expensive material.”
All real Americans, regardless of party affiliation, to avoid another stupid shutdown, I might add, would even be willing to donate their Lincoln Logs.