Snapshot: Trump's World of Sadism and Lies
No, the State of the Union is not strong, not when the White House occupant abuses his power to divide the country and deny reality
In a State of the Union address totaling nearly two hours, the longest ever, there were few surprises. Desperate to appear like a winner, Donald Trump showcased his pathological lying with fake information and grandiose boasting untethered from reality. Determined to exploit the suffering of others, this sadist depicted tales of bloody violence and death with detail and pleasure. Utterly uninterested in unity, he repeatedly attacked those Democrats who chose to be there rather than take part in one of several pro-democracy events around the capital.
“Our nation is back: Bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” Trump lied at the outset, insisting that we are in the midst of “the golden age of America.”
“Tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before—and a turnaround for the ages,” he added.
Then began a flood of nonsense: “Inflation is plummeting”…“the roaring economy is roaring like never before”…“America is respected like never before.” This “stunning economic turnaround” all happened after “the worst inflation in the history of our country” under President Joe Biden (as if the Great Depression or the 1980s never happened). Then, this whopper: “A short time ago, we were a dead country. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. The hottest.”
All this was punctuated by the expected platitude which no one can possibly believe, even his cult: “The state of our union is strong.”
While there were promises from his operatives that he would address affordability, his main thrust was to mock the concept and blame Democrats. Pointing at Democrats, he said, “They caused the increases in prices. They caused the problem.”
Then he got more specific and nasty. “You caused the problem,” he said, insisting, “They knew their statements [on affordability] were a dirty rotten lie. Our policies are doing really well. The prices are plummeting…Soon you’ll see numbers no one could believe.”
Later, dragging out a favorite culture war attack on trans people, he turned to Democrats who may support gender-reassignment surgery: “These people are crazy. With people like this, we’re lucky to have a country.”
How disconnected is this man from what most Americans can see with their own eyes and ears? Three examples:
“We must reject political violence of any kind,” said the man who pardoned hundreds of violent insurrectionists on Jan. 6 and habitually incites violence.
He complained of “the corruption that is plundering America,” not referring to his own pocketing of more than a billion dollars, but the actions of Somalis in Minnesota. “This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation.”
He asked the audience to stand if they agreed with this statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens from illegal aliens.” Yes, the Republicans stood up, as if their government is not responsible for funding and applauding masked and lawless men who are violently attacking and murdering American citizens. When Democrats refused to join in, Trump said, “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
If you skipped this Capitol spectacle, you were lucky enough to miss Trump exploiting victims of violence and survivors of deadly military combat. That included World War II veterans, a National Guardsman deployed to the streets of Washington, D.C. and several others who were injured or killed by undocumented immigrants.
What made this especially sickening was not just that Trump was using them to justify his hateful and murderous deportation operation and his growing desire to deploy the American military in deadly operations—including to Venezuela last month, Mexico in recent days and possibly Iran in the days to come—he did it with such sadistic pleasure. His descriptions could rightly be described as violence porn.
Of course, despite the fact that there were over a dozen Epstein survivors in the chamber and Democrats wearing badges that said “Stand With Survivors. Release the Files,” Trump had nothing to say about this evil story—not the continuing coverup of child rape and sexual abuse nor his own involvement that has yet to be adequately exposed and investigated.
Throughout the evening, his chief protector, Pam Bondi, was standing and applauding her hero’s sadism and lies. So were his highly amused vice president, JD Vance, and his obedient House Speaker, Mike Johnson.
How did this exhausting evening conclude? “The golden age of America is upon us,” Trump said, reading blandly the words on the teleprompter. “The flame of liberty and independence still burns brightly in every American patriot.”
The midterms and the possibility of removal cannot come soon enough.
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Reading about this pathetic speech from Europe, Norway to be exact, one cannot shake the belief that the Republican Party is the single most dangerous threat to the free world.
It seems he’s feeling a bit of rage and so doubled down on the insults & told a longer of litany of lies. Even for him it wasn’t a particularly good performance.
Among his lies - He stated that the disturbed man who killed the young woman who was a Ukrainian refugee in NC was an immigrant. Her killer was a mentally ill US citizen, DeCarlos Brown. It was one of the occasions when he went into ghoulish gory details - while her mother cried.
I would like to see the “dial meter” readouts they use to determine audience reactions to different parts of an event or speech. This was no ‘state of the union’ speech. It is the same tripe he trots out whenever he can. Everything was the Democrats fault. They were ruining the country. They are crazy, etc.
The was a lot of jumping up and clapping North Korean- style by the GOPers for everything he said. That included the only policy I heard announced. He envisions tariffs eventually replacing income taxes. Of course he lied and said other countries pay them. Another lie like all the rest.