You’ll see lots of reviews today of the State of the Union speech that President Trump gave Tuesday night, and if you’re reading this, it’s more than likely you watched it yourself. You don’t need any help forming opinions of what Trump said and the show the president put on.
This column could go on for hours dissecting the speech. But instead, and particularly in light of the absolute debacle the Democrats put on in Iowa — where, as Don Surber noted, they did everything they could to fix a vote and utterly failed — what might be more important to review for posterity is just how poorly Trump’s opponents acquitted themselves on a night Trump kicked his political momentum into overdrive.
Here are the five most cogent examples of just how low that party has sunk, on full display at our nation’s highest-profile annual event.
5. American greatness? Nah.
One of the most rousing, and one would think nonpartisan, bits of the speech was when Trump, toward the finish line, offered an inspirational message of love for the American people that just about anybody could agree with:
As the world bears witness tonight, America is a land of heroes. This is the place where greatness is born, where destinies are forged, and where legends come to life. This is the home of Thomas Edison and Teddy Roosevelt, of many great generals, including Washington, Pershing, Patton, and MacArthur. This is the home of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, the Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, and so many more. This is the country where children learn names like Wyatt Earp, Davy Crockett, and Annie Oakley. This is the place where the pilgrims landed at Plymouth and where Texas patriots made their last stand at the Alamo.
The American nation was carved out of the vast frontier by the toughest, strongest, fiercest, and most determined men and women ever to walk the face of the Earth. Our ancestors braved the unknown; tamed the wilderness; settled the Wild West; lifted millions from poverty, disease, and hunger; vanquished tyranny and fascism; ushered the world to new heights of science and medicine; laid down the railroads, dug out canals, raised up the skyscrapers — and, ladies and gentlemen, our ancestors built the most exceptional Republic ever to exist in all of human history. And we are making it greater than ever before.
You’d think anybody in the audience for that would, regardless of what they thought of the man speaking those words, be able to applaud them.
And you’d think wrong. While half the hall offered loud cheers, the other half mostly sat still, perhaps in honor of their electoral chances this fall.
The energy level on the part of the Democrats didn’t rise until after Trump was finished, and only because Nancy Pelosi, who displayed an impressive variety of bizarre and peculiar facial expressions throughout, broke the monotony by standing up and dramatically ripping up her copy of the speech’s transcript.
Afterwards, asked about her idiotic stunt, Pelosi said she was “courteous” in doing it because it was a “dirty” speech.
“Dirty”? As the NRCC pointed out in a tweet, the speech was an awful lot cleaner than the dung-dotted streets of her district back home in San Francisco.
The speech she ripped up included a salute to the Venezuelan opposition leader, a tribute to the last surviving Tuskegee airman, a military reunion in the gallery, a young underprivileged student earning a scholarship to her dream school, and other celebrations of American achievement, and she calls it “dirty.”
More than half a dozen Democrats didn’t bother showing up. One, New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell, stood up and left during the speech. Feel free to insert the lights-and-cockroaches or sunrise-and-vampires reference if you like. It’s long been said that Democrats only like what they think they could make of America and not America itself; well, they proved it at the State of the Union.
4. Sit your abortion!
There was a moment of political brilliance in the speech when Trump captured the center on the abortion issue for the pro-life movement:
As we pray for all who are sick, we know that America is constantly achieving new medical breakthroughs. In 2017, doctors at St. Luke’s hospital in Kansas City delivered one of the earliest premature babies ever to survive. Born at just 21 weeks and 6 days, and weighing less than a pound, Ellie Schneider was born a fighter. Through the skill of her doctors — and the prayers of her parents — little Ellie kept on winning the battle for life. Today, Ellie is a strong, healthy two-year-old girl sitting with her amazing mother Robin in the gallery. Ellie and Robin: We are so glad you are here.
Ellie reminds us that every child is a miracle of life. Thanks to modern medical wonders, 50 percent of very premature babies delivered at the hospital where Ellie was born now survive. Our goal should be to ensure that every baby has the best chance to thrive and grow just like Ellie. That is why I am asking the Congress to provide an additional $50 million to fund neonatal research for America’s youngest patients. That is also why I am calling upon the members of Congress here tonight to pass legislation finally banning the late-term abortion of babies.
Whether we are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, surely we must all agree that every human life is a sacred gift from God!
Surely we must all agree … except apparently we don’t. Half the hall sat on its hands.
Trump didn’t ask for a visiting-privileges bill. He didn’t ask for a fetal heartbeat bill. He asked for a late-term abortion ban, something science has shown is clearly the termination of a viable human being.
There is a significant majority of Americans who object to abortion up until birth. The Democrats won’t hear of it, so in thrall they are to the criminal radicalism of Planned Parenthood.
3. The pro-poverty party.
Trump spent a big chunk of the first half of the speech spouting one powerful metric of American success after another, and particularly among members of demographic groups who typically vote Democrat:
The unemployment rate is the lowest in over half a century.
Incredibly, the average unemployment rate under my administration is lower than any administration in the history of our country. If we had not reversed the failed economic policies of the previous administration, the world would not now be witness to America’s great economic success.
The unemployment rates for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans have reached the lowest levels in history. African-American youth unemployment has reached an all-time low.
African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded.
The unemployment rate for women reached the lowest level in almost 70 years — and last year, women filled 72 percent of all new jobs added.
The veterans’ unemployment rate dropped to a record low.
The unemployment rate for disabled Americans has reached an all-time low.
Workers without a high school diploma have achieved the lowest unemployment rate recorded in United States history.
A record number of young Americans are now employed.
Under the last administration, more than 10 million people were added to the food stamp rolls. Under my administration, seven million Americans have come off of food stamps and 10 million people have been lifted off of welfare.
Not only did these people sit on their hands, they actually audibly hissed and heckled at Trump when he talked about getting those people off food stamps.
Those are, generally speaking, your voters, Democrats! If you can’t cheer their success, how are you possibly going to demand they support you?
Any Democrat political consultant who saw that should be tripling his rates for any of the swing-district representatives in that room, because his job just got infinitely harder.
2. Stone faces for school choice.
Among many moving moments in the speech was when Trump addressed a black Pennsylvania fourth grader who heretofore has been trapped in a failing school:
The next step forward in building an inclusive society is making sure that every young American gets a great education and the opportunity to achieve the American Dream. Yet, for too long, countless American children have been trapped in failing government schools. To rescue these students, 18 states have created school choice in the form of Opportunity Scholarships. The programs are so popular that tens of thousands of students remain on waiting lists. One of those students is Janiyah Davis, a fourth grader from Philadelphia. Janiyah’s mom, Stephanie, is a single parent. She would do anything to give her daughter a better future. But last year, that future was put further out of reach when Pennsylvania’s governor vetoed legislation to expand school choice for 50,000 children.
Janiyah and Stephanie are in the gallery this evening. But there is more to their story. Janiyah, I am pleased to inform you that your long wait is over. I can proudly announce tonight that an Opportunity Scholarship has become available, it is going to you, and you will soon be heading to the school of your choice.
Now, I call on the Congress to give one million American children the same opportunity Janiyah has just received. Pass the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act — because no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing government school.
It was an embarrassing lack of compassion and insight. A poor kid gets a scholarship to a better school, and you’re so captive to communist teacher’s unions, which give more money to Bernie Sanders, the interloper you’re trying to fix elections to avoid nominating, that you can’t even give token applause to her success?
Wow.
But the worst was what happened at the podium, and it had already happened before Frau Fixodent made her war on presidential paper …
1. Pelosi couldn’t even give fake applause to a guy dying of lung cancer.
It may or may not have been the most moving segment of the speech, but when Rush Limbaugh was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the gallery of the hall, if nothing else it was time for tacit applause. Certainly not griping and grumbling, as an appalling number of the Democrats could be heard to do.
Hell, you applaud if you’re a Democrat solely in the recognition that if Limbaugh was getting that medal Tuesday night, it was a good indication that the stage four lung cancer he announced he’s saddled with gives him so little time left that he won’t be around to torment you anymore. Limbaugh might not even be around long enough to schedule an award ceremony in the future.
This is a man who has been involved in the political game for four decades. Anyone devoting that much passion and energy in the field is deserving of respect for his presence alone. We were supposed to mourn for Ted Kennedy and Elijah Cummings, for crying out loud.
But Nancy Pelosi and more or less every single Democrat in that building sat lifeless as a man who almost assuredly is living his final days was recognized for a lifetime of work.
It was such a breathtaking moment of bad faith and pure, visceral hatred as to call into question their very humanity.
Tuesday night was the worst night of Pelosi’s political career, and it was 100 percent self-inflicted. We should all remember her behavior when she’s unceremoniously dumped out of the speaker’s chair in November’s elections, and we should show her the same degree of respect and compassion she and her fellow goons, in white and other colors, showed to the president, babes and schoolgirls, veterans young and old, and cancer patients of distinction on Tuesday night.
