State of the Union Recap

ICYMI, here's a moment compiling my #SOTU live-tweeting tonight. ⚡️ "State of the Union: Live." https://t.co/cq8wCIhLnC

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 6, 2019

This is what I wrote after last year's State of the Union address:

In sum, it was garbage. Naturally, anyone conscious with a modicum of decency fully anticipated that it would be, but the specific way in which it was garbage was that it was hateful claptrap, poorly written and poorly delivered.

Trump is, as per usual, getting plenty of commendation for managing to read the entire thing off a teleprompter while managing to not shit his pants and keep his teeth in his mouth, but the content was dreck — bigotry and bad policy buried beneath jingoistic pablum that sounded like it was written by a malfunctioning nationalism macro — and his delivery was about as compelling as a piece of wet cardboard on a brown floor.

Truly, the banality of evil.

Which I suppose was the objective. Trump delivered a string of despicable lies, the threat of preemptive warfare against North Korea, and an entire cold-blooded section demonizing Latinx immigrants as murderous gangs in a tone so moderated that pundits who can't be bothered to scrutinize anything but optics couldn't help but assume this was a shiny new "moderate" Trump.

It was not. It was the same old cruel bigot, delivering his terrifying threats of authoritarian ruination with all the excitement of a droning metronome.

Rinse and repeat. The only difference is that instead of issuing a threat of preemptive warfare against North Korea, he announced another summit with Kim Jong Un to be held in Vietnam.

Otherwise, every last word is applicable yet again.

I'll just add this: Thank fuck for Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was truly a joy to see her sitting behind him throughout his shitwheeling speech, with everything I was feeling validated by the expressions on her face and the heaving sighs in her shoulders.

Anyway. CNN has the full transcript of Garbage Mouth's garbage speech as prepared for delivery, if you're interested.

Stacey Abrams' rebuttal was terrific. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a complete transcript. The thing I liked best about her address is that it reminded me of a time when everything didn't feel relentlessly terrible.

She is a very good speaker, and has very sparkly eyes, and I like her very much!

Discuss.