The Fictitious State of Trump’s Fantastical Union

I may not have watched Der Trumpenführer's "State of the Union" address since I knew in advance that it would bear little resemblance to objective reality, but many others did.  In the New York Times, the reactions ranged from that of "conservative" Ross Douthat who perpetually has his head up his ass, in my view, especially when it comes to being an apologist for religion and all of the toxicity it ushers into the world, to making the statement  about last night when he said "you could read tonight’s remarks (a better idea than listening to their somewhat soporific delivery) in part as an attempt to hit the reset button, to pitch himself as a centrist dealmaker rather than a predictable ideologue . . . we saw a glimpse of a potentially successful presidency. . . "  The only problem is that given Trump's utter lack of any moral compass, we will never see a "successful presidency" and even Douthat concedes that Trump lacks any plan to act on the few meritorious items he mentioned.  

Far Better analysis of the disingenuous performance can be found from Nicholas Kristof - who fact checked Trump's claims - who counters Trump claims with facts and figures that show the speech had little to do with reality and, instead was a propaganda piece believable only to his most unhinged base and or the otherwise delusional.  Another good take down comes from Frank Bruni.  Here are excerpts:

The word that came to mind most often as I watched Donald Trump deliver his first State of the Union address was “pretend.”

He pretends to be a statesman, and we’re supposed to pretend that hundreds of vulgar and recklessly divisive moments before this — thousands, if we’re adding tweets — don’t negate that claim.

We’re supposed to pretend that he gives a fig about decorum, though it disappears almost as soon as the teleprompter does. Above all, we’re supposed to pretend that what he says today has any bearing on what he’ll say tomorrow, when what he said yesterday contradicted it.

Our president  [Trump] lives in a world of sand and wind and make-believe, where the merest gust can alter the shape of everything, and Tuesday night’s remarks — especially his appeal for “common ground” and his vision of “all of us together” as “one American family” — should be seen in that shifting, swirling, fantastical context.

But Trump is a ridiculous breed apart, his moods more erratic, his poses more ephemeral, his pledges emptier.

Last February, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, he used his opening minutes to exalt civil rights, decry anti-Semitism and proclaim that “we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.”

Later came the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and his insistence that there were “some very fine people” among the white nationalists and neo-Nazis there.

Early this month he invited television cameras into the White House so that we could behold his placid demeanor as Democrats made their pitch for Dreamers and he recommended a “bill of love.” Within 48 hours, he was ranting about “shithole countries” whose human effluvium befouls our shores.

On Tuesday night, Trump dwelled boastfully on certain economic indicators — unemployment figures, the stock market — to portray America as a newly industrious land, dizzy with sudden riches. But we Americans aren’t that dizzy: We still expect more from our country and president than a Dow above 25,000, and that’s why Trump’s approval rating is below 40 percent.

He took starkly partisan positions on regulations, gun rights, foreign aid, “religious liberty” and more, then dared to pretend that he was extending an “open hand” to Democrats.

There were howlers aplenty in his address. “Americans love their country, and they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return,” he said. How does minimizing Russian interference in the 2016 election — and thwarting the investigation into what happened — accomplish that?

There were fictions galore. “For the last year,” he asserted, “we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.” No. He, his brood, Steven Mnuchin, Louise Linton and Tom Price (remember him?) swanned around on the government’s dime, their self-promotion and self-celebration extraordinary even by Washington’s standards.

The distance between Trump when he’s controlled and Trump when he’s unbound makes a speech like Tuesday night’s an especially hollow charade. And the orchestrated news in it can’t erase the messier developments beforehand, including the escalation of his assault on the F.B.I. and reports of his lawyers’ panic about his offer to be interviewed by the special counsel Robert Mueller. Jonathan Swan wrote in Axios that one of Trump’s intimates “believes the president would be incapable of avoiding perjuring himself. ‘Trump doesn’t deal in reality,’ the source said. ‘He creates his own reality.’ ”

His speech was such a creation, and to treat it any other way is to launder his entire political history and see a leader who has never been there.