Republicans, Trump Couldn't Care Less

    The most extraordinary thing about Trump's State of the Union Address, and the one thing brought up most often by the media, was its length. "Marathon", "record-setting" and so forth are used to describe a 107 minute diatribe that sounded more like a MAGA rally than a State of the Union address.

    Just about everything I predicted last night came to pass. I have, after all, been writing about this venomous orange toad for going on 11 years. He's as predictable as a fart after a Mexican dinner. He bragged about the economy, slung insults at Democrats, the Supreme Court, immigrants. That's why I abdicated my self-enforced responsibilities as a political blogger last night. What's the point?

     However, the usual autopsies have to be conducted, the toxicology determined, the political prognosis advanced.

     It started with what is now becoming a tradition: Rep. Al Green getting booted out of the chamber. Green held up a sign just feet from Trump reading "Black People Aren't Apes." Steve Scalise, cock-gobbler extraordinaire, ripped the sign out of his hands like a random bleacher bum at a MAGA rally and Green was thrown out of the House chamber. Because God forbid anyone, especially a Black man, should call Trump out for his racist post showing the Obamas as apes.

     In the run-up to the speech. Democratic "leaders" cautioned restraint, telling the rank and file basically to sit down and shut up. Green was one of those who didn't listen. Neither did Reps Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar, who heckled Trump as mercilessly as Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert did to Joe Biden, the last democratically-elected president we ever had. 

     It was a dramatic escalation from Rep. Melanie Stansbury's simple sign last year that said, "This Is Not Normal."

     While not once mentioning DHS or ICE, Trump inveighed against immigrants during what has been appraised as the most racist State of the Union in American history. All Trump needed to do was carry a noose to the podium.

     Before the address, one pundit predicted that Trump would tell about 40 lies. O ye of too much faith! For Trump, lying is an autonomic reflex. He lies like the rest of us breathe. If he ever told the truth about anything, he'd spontaneously combust.

     Let's pick one thing he lied about: The economy. He'd bragged about presiding over the greatest economy we'd ever had. He bragged about GDP being higher than in the Biden years. During the Biden years, In President Joe Biden's final year in office, the Gross Domestic Product rose to 2.8%. In the last quarter under Trump, it's half that. Yes, inflation was rampant under Biden but that was attributable largely to the COVID-19 pandemic that was allowed to get out of control thanks to Trump's sociopathic inattention.

     Under Trump, inflation is largely driven by his ridiculous (and now illegal) tariffs which, again, are taxes on the American consumers and companies. It's also caused by Trump's equally insane immigration crackdown that has decimated farms and businesses from coast to coast. With fewer migrant workers to harvest the crops, inventory becomes scarcer and prices skyrocket. Supply and demand, after all.

     And Trump's boasting about prices going down are at stark odds with the reality facing everyday Americans. As stupid and gullible as they are, Republican voters nonetheless only have to look at their bank balances before realizing they're not, in fact, better off than they were a year ago.

     Essentially, Trump rejected the reality and substituted his own. And it's not him that has to directly face the voters. That'll be the congressmen and senators that have to go home and hold town halls, at least, those who still have the guts to face their enraged and dissatisfied constituents.

     In his self-congratulatory speech, Trump gave the Republican party nothing to run on for this year's midterms. He offered nothing but, at best, a few rotten planks to take back to their states and districts. And, again, the voters aren't having it. Trump's approval rating in every poll on the economy and trade are underwater. That's unlikely to change. Remember the $2000 checks we were supposed to get last year? If all the approximately $133 billion we've taken in from added tariffs were handed to every American, it would total fewer than $400 per head. And the government has no intention of sharing even that pittance with any of us.

     Of course, Trump wouldn't tell us that.

     The national average for a gallon of gasoline stands at about $2.94. Trump, a guy who's never had to go to a gas station in his life, claimed it was $1.85.   

     He started out sounding like a carnival barker on meth then as the speech wore on, he began sunsetting as his Adderall wore off. Nonetheless, JD Vance and Mike Johnson continued popping up every few minutes like Jack in the Box clowns, especially after he said he had the right to bypass Congress and unilaterally do whatever he wanted, which is exactly how autocrats think.

     The roar is getting louder by the minute and every Republican in that chamber knew what it is: the blue tsunami that will engulf the GOP and this failing administration. And Trump couldn't care less except inasfar as an inevitable third impeachment.