As a rule, presidents want to have it both ways in their annual State of the Union addresses. They want to «reach out to all Americans» with
As a rule, presidents want to have it both ways in their annual State of the Union addresses.
They want to «reach out to all Americans» with uplifting appeals to unity and bipartisanship. But they can’t resist pumping up the pep rally for their party and most loyal supporters.
If that applies to all presidents in all seasons, it surely applied Tuesday night to President Trump, who has found the halfway point of his term to be fraught with political travail.
The president’s address had been delayed a week because of a 35-day partial shutdown of the federal government, a shutdown for which polls showed he bore the burden of blame. His approval ratings in general had slumped in the new year, and a phalanx of investigations is moving inexorably forward in Congress as well as in the justice system.
While he projected his usual triumphant bravado Tuesday night, Trump was also confronting for the first time a chamber of Congress controlled by the opposition. The newly enlarged ranks of House Democrats were quite visibly arrayed before him. Especially hard to miss were the scores of women among them wearing white to celebrate the centenary of Congress passing the constitutional amendment that empowered women to vote.
The president confronted this new challenge with a version of the familiar State of the Union strategy. He began with an appeal for unity, an appeal much foreshadowed by pre-speech White House briefings. He also praised America («We do the incredible, we defy the impossible… Together we represent the most extraordinary nation in all of history»), recalled its heroics in space travel and World War II, pledged to eradicate HIV in a decade and announced new spending against childhood cancer.
The speech was so full of applause lines, emotional introductions of guests and exhortations of patriotism that it lasted nearly an hour and a half. It was even longer than last year’s address, landing third on the all-time list for length (behind two of Bill Clinton’s entries). At several points, the clapping and cheering segued into chants of «USA! USA!» from the Republican side of the chamber.
(At another point, when the president acknowledged the record number of women elected to Congress in November, the Democratic side erupted in chants of «USA! USA!»)
Understandably enough, the president praised the soaring heights of the economic recovery, which has been peaking since he took office. He made a special point of citing the record low unemployment numbers for black and Hispanic workers.
In a similar vein, he celebrated passage of the First Step Act, a bipartisan effort at reforming the criminal justice system. He introduced the well-publicized Alice Johnson, who got out of jail last year under the new law after having her case brought to Trump’s attention by Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
