EDITORIAL – A State of the Union speech nobody thought was possible

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

DID YOU HANG IN for Trump’s speech last night? It took stamina; it was almost two hours’ worth of the world according to Trump.

As soon as he took to the podium with his tousled hair and silly grin, he launched into a glowing tribute to what he sees as his economic achievements, his Achilles heel. “Our nation is back, bigger, better and stronger than ever before,” he claimed.

Nobody thought it was possible. Nobody’s seen anything like it. Hottest country in the world. “The state of our union is strong.”

It took him only a few minutes, though, to get to hockey. “We’re winning so much we really don’t know what to do about it,” he said, then announced the entry into the chamber of most — not all —of the U.S men’s hockey team. For special praise, he picked out goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who stood with his teammates, busily chewing gum as he waved and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The star of the show. Good grief.

The Orange Man did resist what was probably an urge to insult Canada. But then he launched into frequent trashing of the Democrats, blaming them for everything that had ever gone wrong in the world, and singing the glory of tariffs, which he claimed would eventually replace income tax.

The Dems, he said, were telling a “dirty rotten lie” about affordability. They’re all “sick” and “crazy.” Inflation was all their fault, of course, but he was fixing it. He was fixing the healthcare system, too, along with a whole bunch of other stuff.

And those illegal aliens. Well, they were killing Americans right and left, but he was putting an end to that. The Dems had allowed the border invasion to happen and will do it again if they’re ever re-elected. But he’ll stop them by putting an end to rigged elections.

He avoided the temptation to insult the Supreme Court justices who sat in the front row, calling their tariff decision simply “unfortunate.” Several times.

He tried, sometimes successfully, to bait the Democrats by asking them to stand up to indicate their support of “protecting Americans, not illegal aliens” and other such challenges. For the most part, they demurred, giving him the opportunity to shake his head in mock sadness.

And, it wouldn’t be a State of the Union address without introducing a litany of citizens and soldiers representing his achievements and all that’s good and great about America. Charlie Kirk’s wife Erika was there; so was the mother of a Ukrainian woman murdered by an illegal alien, and a teenager who avoided a sex change. So was a 100-year-old Navy pilot who fought in Korea, and a current-day helicopter pilot who fought in the Venezuela raid. They both received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Trump acknowledged he wouldn’t mind getting one of those medals himself. After all, he’s ended eight wars, don’t ya know, “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capability, got a ceasefire in Gaza.

No mention of his absolutely chaotic record on tariffs, no mention of the ICE outrages, or of the detention of the five-year-old kid with his backpack, or of his fixation with naming things after himself, or of the Epstein files.

It was all the same old, same old, and it was too much.

Mel Rothenburger is a former regular contributor to CFJC-TV and CBC radio, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, writes for the Kamloops Chronicle and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Webster Foundation Commentator of the Year finalist. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.