There was a time when the President’s State of the Union address was a seminal event. They were both reflections on the past and an opportunity to rally the country (and Congress) to big policy objectives. Clinton’s “the era of big government is over”, FDR’s outlining of the “four freedoms”, Johnson’s “war on poverty”, Bush’s “axis of evil” – remembered as emblematic of their time and the administration’s ethos. Reagan began the recognition of average citizens for heroic moments. Sure, there were some political points scored but largely the theatrics were left behind while the President spoke to the American people in front of a live audience of our representatives. In about 45 minutes, we had a yardstick for the direction of our Executive Branch.

As with the tenor of our nation’s politics, the tenor of our SOTU addresses have changed. No opportunity to needle or lambast the opposition is missed. Sometimes citizens with no political agenda are saluted, but other times the most politically divisive people are recognized. Instead of attempting to rally the public and Congress around a message, SOTUs have become displays of partisan hyperbole, in the form of increasingly lengthy (now over an hour and a half long) boasts of supposed accomplishments. Perhaps they finally reached the pinnacle this year, so much so that the SOTU was largely a State of Delusion address.

Ask the American public whether the economy is going well and they would decidedly say “NO”. Ask the President – “It’s the Golden Age”. Perhaps gold plated. Inflation is ‘way down’ – no, inflation is virtually the same as it has been (no thanks to his tariffs). Employment is sky high – ‘best ever’ – no, unemployment is up. Foreign investment is booming – ‘$18 trillion committed’ – well, not even close and direct foreign investment in the US is pretty stable, year-over-year. Without tariffs we were being ‘ripped off’ – so with tariffs, our trade deficits on goods are even higher than before!

And there is so much ‘peace’ – so much that we’ve bombed Iran, Venezuela, and small boats in the Caribbean. Trump is so proud of NATO countries committing to spend 5% of their GDP on defense, but the truth is that our NATO allies feel that they can no longer rely on the US as an ally, particularly with the President threatening to take over Greenland (part of NATO territory). I’m reminded of Orwell’s 1984 slogan “War is Peace” – apparently the President took this literally.

Nowhere in the SOTU did we hear about a report card on illegal immigration – largely because the government stopped reporting statistics (and the Congress stopped demanding them). Every indication is that detentions are up but deportations are well below what the administration anticipated. And there was certainly no mention of the citizens detained, shot, and murdered in the course of the ICE crackdown. There was no talk of the budget deficits spiraling out of control, the impending shortfalls for Social Security and Medicare trust fund financing, or new policy solutions for affordability (a hoax in the President’s eyes). But plenty of medals handed out (except for a medal given to the President by the President – to his disappointment). And new tariffs – that makes everybody happy, doesn’t it?

In Orwell’s 1984, the leader would report on government statistics (ad nauseum) and then the government would retroactively change the targets of the government to show a favorable result. This government doesn’t bother to fix the stats – any mention of reality can simply be labeled ‘crazy’ or ‘fake news’.

And the national disgrace continues…