Circus Trumpius

Car Wreck

I hate to admit it, but, I watched Donald Trump’s State of the Union “address” last night.  I know, we weren’t supposed to.  In Trump’s world, television ratings are almost as important as billion dollar “presents”.  We were supposed to watch the “alternative” State of the Union programming.  But, there are those of us who watch NASCAR to see the wrecks.  And when an Olympian drops down into the halfpipe, or speeds down the mountain at seventy-plus miles an hour, there’s always the “agony of defeat” to go along with the “thrill of victory”.  

So I watched “Circus Trumpius” last night.  There wasn’t a single car wreck. But there wasn’t much of a State of the Union either.  Instead, it became the, record setting, award giving, heart-rending, bloodletting, “good versus evil”, Trump show.  It didn’t have much to do with where our country is going.  But it said a tremendous amount about where our country is.

Bingo!!!

Talk about a game:  I even had my Gavin Newsom produced “bingo card” for canned Trump phrases.  I didn’t get “Bingo”, but I did fill in the majority of my squares.  He lied about tariffs (we do pay for them). He talked about the stock market (“never been anything like it”). Trump said how good a soldier looked in his uniform (always a little creepy).  And he blamed Biden and Obama for almost everything.  I don’t know how he missed out on “clean coal” or using the term “woke”.

And by my own personal count, there were twenty-eight major, outright lies.  There were numbers made up out of thin air, or reversed from the real answer.  And then there’s that 600% less thing, a mathematical impossibility (after 100% less, it’s zero). But there were lots of medals.  Trump likes medals. In fact, he joked about giving himself the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military award for heroism.  But he didn’t do that.  Instead, he awarded two. One was to a helicopter pilot wounded in the Venezuela raid that captured Maduros. The other was to a World War II vet, 100 years old.  And to be clear, they both did a lot to  earn our Nation’s highest honor.  

Winners

Trump likes to “rub up” against winners.  And that “rubbing up” seems to sully the value of the awards.  There was also a Purple Heart to the West Virginia National Guardsman shot on the streets of Washington, DC. And he’s giving a Presidential Gold Medal to the goalie of the US Olympic Hockey Team.  Yes, most of the team was there, wearing their Olympic Gold, and basking to the applause and the chants of “USA, USA, USA”.   

But it almost felt like an Oprah Show rip off.  Kind of a, “Hey, up in the balcony, look under your seat and see – yes, you’ve won the Congressional Medal of Honor!!!!”.  Or maybe The Price is Right, “Would the Olympic Hockey Team, or the freed Venezuelan dissident, ‘Come on down’”. 

It all reminds me of Donald Trump, 2015. He liked “winners” who didn’t get captured, not “losers” like John McCain who spent years in a North Vietnamese prison.

Good v Evil

Who was good?  The team, the medal winners, Melania, Jared, the Cabinet, and the Republicans in the room who got a great plyo workout, jumping up and down to cheer on the President.  Who was bad?  Well, you know:  Obama, Biden, the “criminal illegal aliens”, all of the Democratic cities, and, all of the Democrats in the room.  All Trump needed to do was give a “thumbs down”, and you felt like the ICE guys would rush in and take them away.

What did Trump want?  He wants to restrict voting access, to stop an imaginary flood of illegal voting that even his own think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, says does NOT exist.  The Trump team thinks that the fewer people allowed to vote, the better Trump and MAGA candidates are likely to do.  So, strict voter ID, proof of citizenship, little or no mail in ballots, and all sorts of security around election sites are their “plan” to protect (or win) elections.

Records

I remember when Bill Clinton set the old record for the length of the State of the Union message: almost an hour and a half.  Clinton’ Arkansas accent covered us with “molasses”, and frankly, was the best antidote for insomnia.  But Clinton had a lot to talk about, lots of plans for the future, to make America a better place. Many of us slept through parts of his speech, because we weren’t worried about when the next “car wreck” would be.

But I suspect everyone was wide awake last night, waiting for “the other shoe to drop” through the one hour and forty-seven minute ramble.  And give Trump credit:  he stuck to the speech, he didn’t dance on the stage, and I didn’t get to check the box that he “…slurs his words”.  

Eggs and Epstein

Trump told us the price of eggs and gas is down, and that everyone is doing better. It’s kind of like the ICE shootings in Minneapolis. We aren’t supposed to believe our “lying eyes” or our “lying wallets”. But he didn’t mention the word “Epstein”, even though his Justice Department was accused of covering up damaging information directly against Trump, just yesterday.   

But he did say that he didn’t need Congress to raise tariffs, in spite of the Supreme Court ruling.  Oh, and what will he do with all that tariff money that he can’t get right now?  Well, he suggested that we wouldn’t need income tax anymore, implying that tariffs from other countries could pay all of our national costs. 

So he lied, again.  Other countries don’t “pay” tariffs, we do, in increased prices.  But there’s always a good story on the “Circus Trumpius” show.  No truth is required.