SOTU left Americans with plenty of questions
President Donald Trump addressed the nation from inside the Capitol Building last week. The title of the speech, “Choosing Greatness,” was supposed to promote bipartisanship. Trump couldn’t have hit further from the mark.
Admittedly, it is extremely difficult to successfully call for unity in such a divided political atmosphere as what America is facing today. Even with this in mind, it should be acknowledged that Trump failed in the primary goal of his speech. The State of the Union mainly consisted of Trump parroting the same talking points in a more toned-down manner. These are the same talking points that have led the Democrats, and quite frankly a majority of the country (if the most recent Politico approval ratings are to be believed), to oppose him so vehemently.
The New York Times listed nine statements the president made that were either misleading or just false. This is excluding the statements that were labelled as exaggerated or having no evidence. With topics ranging from the economy to abortion, the president lied to the American people.
“We had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth,” said Trump.
According to the Washington Post, this statement was likely made to reference the governor Ralph Northam’s support of a bill that would make it easier for women to receive an abortion provided that there is risk to the woman’s life or her mental or physical health. However, we should not have to guess at what the president is saying as if every word that comes from his mouth is a metaphor.
In the end, the president lied about the statements and beliefs of another elected official in order to score political points. This is simply perplexing because there are so many ways to attack that same governor without lying right now. Even a large pool of important figures from his own party are calling for his resignation after it was revealed that he was a racist and wore blackface. Yet, rather than using that argument or even properly stating his problems with the bill that the governor has attached himself to, Trump feels the need to spread falsehoods.
For other topics that tend to be praised by both political parties, such as infrastructure and paid family leave, the president spent so little time in his speech discussing them that such matters seemed inconsequential and unimportant to him.
All Trump had to say on infrastructure was, “Both parties should be able to unite for a great rebuilding of America’s crumbling infrastructure. I know that the Congress is eager to pass an infrastructure bill — and I am eager to work with you on legislation to deliver new and important infrastructure investments, including investments in the cutting-edge industries of the future.” He mentioned no details or specifics. This was essentially easy points to score with the American people, and Trump didn’t even try.
In the end, Trump was calmer than usual. He rarely went off script and even brought up a few strong, bipartisan issues, showing progress that the country has made during his term.
However, we should not lower the bar for this president and say he did a good job just because he has failed even the lowest of expectations in the past. Yes, he showed that he is dedicated to prison reform. Just don’t forget that he also spouted xenophobic and dehumanizing statements, such as calling people trying to cross the southern border “coyotes.” Yes, he threw his support towards solving childhood cancer. Remember also that, in such a blatantly corrupt manner as for it to only be labelled Nixonian, he called for an end to the investigations into whether or not he colluded with a hostile foreign power. We shouldn’t praise Trump and call him presidential just because he didn’t fly off the handle this one time.
I think most of the American public left his speech with the same impression of him and his presidency that they had before. Not much new material was stated, and there was plenty of vital subjects that went glaringly unstated. His relatively quiet demeanor was only an attempt to mask his shameful policies and mindset, which have never changed. Trump is still Trump, and we shouldn’t fool ourselves into giving his State of the Union less scrutiny than we gave those given by the presidents of the past just because we know it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
By Landon Allison, News Editor
allisolj17@bonaventure.edu
