Blogger Candidate Forum State Of The Union

Hello Everyone:

It is another cold and lovely day in the blogosphere. It is a Wednesday, Blogger is wide awake, which means it is time for Blogger Candidate Forum, the post-State of the Union edition.  This is Mr. Donald Trump's first SOTU to a divided Congress.  Overall the president delivered passable speech, if you measure passable as sticking to the speech and turn it into a MAGA rally.  In that case, mission accomplished.  As a speech intended to demonstrate conciliation and a call for unity, it was neither.  Instead, it came across as almost a final State of the Union.  Perhaps, this is Blogger's impression but Yours Truly could not help but wonder if Mr. Donald Trump is slowly realizing that he may not have a lot of time left in office.  However, that is a story for another day.  Mostly, it was a speech that played to his base. The question is what comes next?

What comes next is will the president adjust his approach to governance to the new reality of Congress?  If the lack of acknowledgment of the new political landscape is any indication, then the answer is no.  However, it remains to be seen if Mr. Trump will follow President Bill Clinton's example and successfully move toward congressional Republicans in the nineties; President George W. Bush's example and power ahead with his agenda; President Barack Obama and just ignore the Republican majority?  Blogger seems to think that he will not make any adjustments whatsoever.  

The president did start off sounding a bipartisan note, but...  Ahead of the speech, his advisors argued the idea that he would extend an olive branch to the newly empowered Democrats and ask the two parties to come together for the good of the country. The big bipartisan applause line, Victory is not winning for our party. Victory is winning for our country (cnn.com; date accessed Feb. 6, 2019). 

Great line, wrong person speaking it.  This was followed by 

We reject the politics of revenge, resistance and retribution--and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise and the common good--... (Ibid)

Maybe it would have been more convincing if someone else, someone who did not spend his entire presidential campaign raising revenge, retribution, resistance to high art.  Now that same person had the audacity to ask the assembled gentle people of Congress to set all that aside for the common good.  Uh, right.  That will happen the day he stops tweeting insults.  Better yet, just stop the tweets.  Even while pleading for unity, the president continued to paint the Democrats as obstructionists who favor open borders, hypocrites, and making extreme remarks on abortion. Pot meet kettle

Next, another oft-quoted line:

If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation, it just doesn't work that way. (Ibid). 

Try to follow the logic: "if you want economic prosperity, you can't investigate the President." (Ibid) The two are mutually incompatible. 

Pretty nervy given that the Trump adminsitration is neck deep in an investigation by special Counsul Robert Muller, Trump enterprises are in he crosshairs of the Southern District of New York and the House Democrats, and firing of FBI director James Comey. 

The line echoed the one late President Richard Nixon delivered in the 1974 State of the Union address--One year of Watergate is enough (Ibid).  President Nixon resigned in August 1974.  Need Blogger say more? 

Women in white ruled the House.  It was hard to miss the Democratic (including Speaker Nancy Pelosi) women dressed in white, in honor of suffragette movement.  The ladies provided the most surprising moment, even for the president, of the night. While lauding his economic success, the president delivered this line:

All Americans can be proud that we have more women in workforce than ever before--and exactly one century after the Congress passed the constitutional amendment giving the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before... (Ibid)

The president did say the magic words "Madame Speaker."  Kind of ironic for the president to try to take credit for their success because the 100-plus newly sworn in female members of Congress were elected because of him. They flipped the script, using the moment to lead the entire chamber in chanting U-S-A and celebrate their accomplishment while a chagrined president looked on, offering milquetoast congratulations. 

Fourth, Mr. Trump was quite explicit in not saying he would declare a national emergency on the U..S.-Mexico border if Congress did not reach an acceptable (to him) compromise on the federal budget by the February 15 deadline.  He did lay the foundation for why he would be forced to take this extraordinary measure should it be necessary. He said:

The lawless state of our southern border is a great to the safety, security and financial well-being of all Americans...(Ibid)

He referred to the border as the very dangerous southern border (Ibid). At one point, he presented the rather fictional image of Mexico loading undocumented immigrants in buses and truck to bring them near the unsecured areas of the border. 

His point being, if Congress will not act, he will, declaring that he will build that wall

Finally, can we talk about Speaker Nancy Pelosi's hand clap?  You know, the picture that went hyper-viral of Speaker Pelosi doing some sort weird walrus clap?  That one, the heavily memed one.  Or how about Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) mouth twist or Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer's (D-NY) possible expletive?  Just a friendly reminder that actions speak louder than words and if the president is serious about his call for unity, he will have to do more than utter pretty things.