Sometime on Tuesday afternoon I decided I wasn't going to watch the State of the Union speech. There were a couple of things which caused me to come to that conclusion. Foremost in my mind was the cluster fuck which was the Iowa caucuses. My thinking was the entire process there--breathlessly over hyped by the media to begin with--had turned into a giant Saturday Night Live skit written and produced by Roger Stone.
During the midst of the chaos, as a phone app meant to transmit data from precinct heads to the state democratic HQ failed spectacularly, Mayor Pete Buttigieg stood up and with only circumstantial evidence to support him, declared he'd won. Not to be out done, within a short time, so did everybody else.
Buttigieg's audacity and surprisingly strong showing threw Bernie Sanders' camp into a paranoid frenzy. Charges quickly flew the South Bend, IN mayor is connected to the tech company which designed the fouled application. Even if he isn't the company is owned by known supporters of Hillary Clinton who still seethe with anger at the Senator from Vermont. And--even if they don't it is a well known fact the Democratic National Committee is doing everything it can to prevent Sanders from getting the nomination, just like they did in 2016.
By the time midnight rolled around it seemed some of Sanders' supporters were on the verge of accusing anyone not supporting their man of visiting the basements of pizza parlors for unspeakable reasons.
Even by late yesterday afternoon the situation was still utterly confused. So much so MSNBC's normally reliable Steve Kornacki was babbling incomprehensibly in front of a county map of Iowa, sounding uncomfortably like Ron Burgundy trying to explain 15th century European history.
That's when I shut it down. No more, I thought. They can screw with Kornacki's brain all they want, but not mine.
Besides, knowing Trump, his State of the Union address would be nothing more than a litany of lies and xenophobic hoo hah you can catch at any of his campaign rallies. So, while I watched, "The Curse of Oak Island," on the History Channel Don Trump apparently did just that.
Of course I could have watched over a third of what Trump said after the Oak Island episode ended, because the man does love to blather on, but I didn't. What I missed from start to finish was a display of acrimony and division not seen in the republic since the years just prior to the Civil War. While we didn't witness a remake of Congressman Preston Brooks beating the living daylights out of Senator Charles Sumner with a cane, we did see the President of the United States refuse to shake the offered hand of the Speaker of the House. Then, at the end, saw the Speaker tear a copy of the just delivered speech in half.
In between highlights showed there were boos, groans, cheers applause, the ejection of a murdered high school student's father, and Rush Limbaugh awarded the same medal worn by Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Colin Powell, and Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf.
Massachusetts Congressman, Seth Moulton, a former Marine walked out of the hall when Trump bragged about his unprecedented support of the armed forces. Moulton tweeted, "I left the #SOTU after Trump--a draft dodger who has mocked Sen. John McCain, Gold Star families, and soldiers with traumatic brain injury--started talking about the good he has done the military."
Moulton, who was among the first troops to enter Baghdad in 2003, displayed far more diplomacy than I would have. In fact I went on social media earlier in the day saying if it was up to me, every democrat in both houses would walk out as soon as the narcissistic bastard entered the chamber.
After it was over social media outlets lit up as Trump's fascist front howled that Nancy Pelosi was, "classless," for tearing Trump's speech in half--ignoring, of course his cold refusal to shake her hand an hour and a half earlier. However, as always, Ms. Pelosi got in the last word.
When asked why she ripped the documents in two the Speaker of the House said, "It was the most courteous thing I could do."
And that's where we're at now as a nation. Thanks to the divisiveness of Donald J. Trump the most courteous things we can do while he speaks is watch a Canadian cable TV show, walk out, or afterward, rip transcripts of his speech to shreds.
Hey, it's better than Brooks taking a cane to Sumner, although, at this point, one has to think that day is coming soon.
sic vita est
2-5-20
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