The State of Our Union is...Psychotic?

Like every single awards show, it's time for the televised SotU address to go, too.

Good Heavens! Whatever were the reasons for making the POTUS’ State of the Union address to a fully assembled congress a televised event seventy-six years ago, they are no longer valid. It is no longer an event worthy of the time it consumes, nor of the attention of those who view it. It has outlived its relevance. It has become little more than a showcase for the Democrats to behave like spoiled brats – from the Kenyan Light Bringer’s subtle but clear denigration of the supreme court re: its decision on the Citizens United case:

…to Nanshee *hic* Pullohshee’s histrionics:

Meanwhile, in true Republican Party fashion, when they misbehave, it’s pretty mild:

– hardly the breach of protocol that the lush from the Bay Area demonstrated.

“President” Biden owes Speaker McCarthy some thanks that the event was not upstaged by such sophomoric behaviour as was congressional Democrats’ wont during President Trump’s administration.

The SotU has become a sick, and cruel joke. It upholds what is likely the most vile, yet most widely accepted of traditions among politicians of all stripes, one which George Santos does much to the chagrin of not only his colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle but Democrats as well, and with such élan the shame is conspicuous by its absence. That tradition, is brazen bald-face lying. However, leave it to undocumented Democrats like the disingenuous grifter “Mittens” Romney – a man born on third base, but is convinced he hit a triple – to expose congress for the vapid country club it is by telling the Hon. Rep. George Santos (R-NY 3rd), “You don’t belong here…” – that is so very rich, I almost went into a diabetic coma just reading about it.

Am I the only one who finds it to be even remotely an affront to the late Ted Knight’s portrayal of Judge Smails in the film, “Caddyshack,”

when he’s attempting to persuade the fictitious Ty Webb (who, as a character in a comedic movie, possesses more character than the real-life “actor” portraying him) that “…some people just don’t belong…”?

If lying and dishonesty are disqualifications for this whitewashed pig sty, then no one currently sworn in deserves to be there.

Wouldn’t it be a most poetic justice were this to be proven true, thus removing from Mr. Santos the mantle of being a pathological liar? Nonetheless, he’s not wrong.

That the first one to be televised was president Truman’s, kudos to him and the Democrats who were so forward-thinking. Kudos, as well, to LBJ who was the first to deliver it in what has come to be known as prime time. Give the Democrats credit – they saw the future of mass communication, and leveraged a dull, boring matter of procedure to capture its trappings for its optics and showcase their party’s president in the best light possible, perhaps with the intention of inoculating him from the attacks that would come from the Republicans, and from 1968 to 1980, against any kind of internecine struggle (President Carter vs. Senator Ted “The Swimmer” Kennedy vs. John White, DNC Chairman).

In the years since as the technology advanced and the TV broadcast landscape changed, the legacy corporate media’s narrative surrounding each such address changed with the president and his party affiliation.

If it was a Democrat president, the narrative was always a positive, optimistic one. It spoke of the address as being one of hope, outreach to those marginalized (read as, not white, conservative males), bringing unity to a fractured nation, blah blah – vomit – blah. If it was a Republican president, however, the narrative was of the president attempting in vain to govern a nation bitterly divided, lacking the political capital and people skills to overcome legal and legislative obstacles, unable to cope with scandal within his administration – in short, a feckless and incapable president.

Bottom line, given the corporate legacy media, no Republican president could ever win even the painstakingly staged SotU address, and until Trump came on the scene, spineless globalists like W were all too happy to play their part in the political kabuki.

Since HW Bush’s first SotU address, if the president is not outright lying about the condition of the nation’s morale, the economy, or common cultural values, he is going out of his way to attempt to be relevant to every special-interest group that contributes money to the re-election campaign. This is done by reciting a laundry list of doomed-to-fail initiatives to placate them (see any one of President Bill Clinton’s SotU addresses). This is done to keep them happy so that they don’t embarrass the president by calling him out for failing to keep his promise to cut military spending to such a degree that the USAF is forced to rely on proceeds from bake sales of transgender, ambidextrous, K-level teachers of Asian-Pacific Island-descent for its funding. In the words of the current Victim-of-Elder-Abuse-in-Chief, “No joke.”

What everyone knows – especially this nation’s enemies: China, the Deep State (but I repeat myself), Russia, and any number of other bad nation-state actors – is that if the Puppet – er – President of the United States publicly avers that the nation is in deep defecation, said enemies and allies will perceive that the American military is weak, that there is a crisis of national resolve and morale among its citizens, and the surrender to Communist China and its client states has become reality, straining alliances, and plunging financial markets around the globe into utter turmoil.

Well, here’s a news flash: all of that already is the perception – given that the current occupant of the most powerful office in the free world’s refusal to defend this nation’s airspace until the immediate threat is seemingly past for fear of displeasing his true constituency (the Chinese Communist Party) and thereby losing his post as Communist China's chief delegate to the Executive Branch – it has all but become reality.

The administration’s pathetic whataboutism in scrambling to downplay Communist China’s trial balloon (in more ways than one) may not remove all doubt about where ol’ Joe-from-Scranton’s loyalties lie, but there ought to be enough skepticism about who he’s really serving to warrant erring on the side of caution by denying him a second bid for the presidency, if not preemptively removing him from office.

The claim that similar Chinese spy balloons traversed American airspace on several occasions during the Trump administration is not only patently false on its face, but highly unlikely. If Alexander Vindman can leak the details of an allegedly secure phone conversation in a most sorry effort to discredit and compromise President Trump, how could he not have known of each instance of the Chinese spy balloons, and leaked those to the vipers that are the Washington, DC press corps, as well? President Trump was under such an intense magnifying glass while he was in office, there is no way that, if true, he would not have been absolutely and mercilessly destroyed in the media.

As far as satisfying Article II, Section 3, Clause 1 is concerned, since the requirement is that, “The President ‘shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.’”, it could be done any number of ways other than a televised event.

Given today’s technology, this could be done by making a video of the address, either as it is done currently or by the president speaking from the Oval Office. Maybe even record it as one would a Microsoft™ Teams or Zoom™ meeting, with a customized background of the president’s preference. Perhaps provide a transcript of the address in a PDF that may or may not accompany the video, or hell – maybe just do it once over the course of a year when convenient or necessary. Were I advising the next Republican POTUS, that is what I would suggest as it achieves the following objectives:

·     it neutralizes one of the Democrats’ most powerful tools.

·     it provides the president’s people control over the entire production.

·     it generates more publicity than could ever be purchased by such a disruption of what is a custom, not a constitutional requirement.

This would play particularly well in Trump’s wheelhouse.

I submit that only Democrats, and some members of the corporate legacy media, would miss the annual SotU address. The streaming and traditional broadcast networks could better use that time to sell some advertising in a slot that hasn’t been available for more than seventy years. The times have changed, and the SotU as we know it, is merely a relic of a now bygone era. In the same way that American Top 40 with Casey Kasem

left the cultural and radio broadcast landscape long ago, it’s time for the SotU, as a televised event, to go away, too.

Thank you, dear reader, for your time, and for your indulgence in this, my first foray into the relatively short-form essay.