During the Obama years, the State of the Union address was a divisive and arrogantly partisan lecture by a smooth-talking president. He lectured Supreme Court members so much that some stopped attending. This year we can focus not on the messenger but on the message, which seems to be working together on immigration and rebuilding our infrastructure.
During past Statist of the Union speeches, Joe Biden dutifully sat behind the president and clapped on cue to his liberal laundry list. The highly excitable "Plugs" Biden looked so happy - it was as if he had just heard that Rogaine had gone generic. This year, Vice President Mike Pence sat there uncomfortably without his wife, ever fearful that that vixen, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, might be trying to seduce him.
Trump's speech was great. Apparently his staff had him focused on his teleprompter and wearing a shock collar in case he went off it. The Democrats sat with the worst looks on their faces; they looked like patients waiting for test results in the lobby of a free clinic.
Ron HartDemocrats try to pit those who work for a living against those who vote for a living. They take from the makers and give money to the takers in exchange for the takers' votes - often twice in one election. It is easy to lavish other people's tax money on people in order to stay in power. It's much harder to stand on principle and make the hard, long-term decisions that are best for the country. Trump, while indelicate and not nearly the messenger Obama and Bill Clinton were, knows that most people want to earn their money and enjoy the sense of self-worth that comes with a good job in a growing economy.
Even when liberal NPR points out that African-American unemployment is now at 6.8 percent, the lowest level since government started keeping track of it in 1972, Democrats' instinct is just to push back. Pelosi and Schumer would probably point out that this statistic is untrue; actually, black unemployment was zero under Democrat President James Buchanan, the man Republican Abraham Lincoln succeeded in 1860.
Thanks to the Dems' petulant nature, we had the three-day "Schumer Shutdown," but no one knew the government was not working. The NSA had to ask Americans to spy on each other for three days. The shutdown was bad timing for the Democrats. With regulations lifted, stock markets soaring, jobs created and corporations giving pay raises and bonuses to employees, who needs government?
If Trump could bring our troops home by convincing Russia it is their turn to invade Afghanistan again, he might get on Mount Rushmore.
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Democrats need people from a perpetual underclass they can convince have been wronged by America. To them, America is a mean-spirited, bigoted, racist place of inequality, and they want illegal immigrants to come here and enjoy it. In reality, Dems are running out of victimization voters and need to replenish their base. We just had a black president. What's next? A black American divorcee is marrying into Britain's royal family. Clutch my pearls! The race card is overplayed; we've moved past that. Yet all 52 cards in the Democrats' deck are the race card. They don't even have to deal off the bottom of the deck anymore.
Obama never did a deal with the Republicans. Trump may be the easiest president to do a deal with since Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan agreed on important legislation. Trump is willing to meet them on an agreement on DACA (a.k.a. the "Dreamers"), yet they backstab him by going to the press after private meetings and say he called the countries we take most of our immigrants from "s***holes." That is like being allowed to stay free in a hotel, burning it down, and then disputing your mini-bar bill.
With their hysterical Russian collusion investigation coming up snake-eyes, Democrats are running out of ways to obstruct Trump. He gets around pathetically biased media reporting by tweeting, mostly to inform people, but also to tweak the nose of the media.
The Grammys predictably trashed Trump, with Hillary Clinton reading from the tabloid book "Fire and Fury." Next will be the Michelle and Barack Obama books for which Random House gave them a $59.5 million advance. It's more bad news for Democrats; even the Obamas are making tons of money under Trump.
A libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, Ron can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.