SOTU What?

Give it up already. The State of the Union is Bullshit.

I see that most Democratic members of Congress showed up for Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. Some of them brought Epstein survivors to the event. Rep. Al Green, bless him, got himself thrown out by shaming Tubby with a sign. Others yelled at the old bastard. The rest did the expected thing in which they stayed seated while Republicans stood and hollered (giving Trump an opportunity to claim they hated America, like he needed one).

I’ve said more than once that giving political advice to the Democratic Party — or to any combatant, really, but especially them — is a mug’s game. They don’t listen and you’re not getting paid for it. Consider this, then, more of an existential prescription — that is, me telling you what the better course of action would have been, as an indirect way of telling you how to handle the current crisis we find ourselves in without going nuts.

So, in that spirit: I really think the Democrats shouldn’t have had anything to do with the State of the Union. Not only should none of them have attended, they shouldn’t have had their alternative “People’s” SOTU and such like. And, assuming (perhaps unfairly) Tubby’s still on the scene next year, they should ignore it then.

In fact I don’t think they should have claimed their “Democratic Response” time, either, except maybe, possibly, just to run film clips of Tubby making an ass of himself, or a cartoon of him wallowing in shit and raping little girls. (Is that allowed? I dunno, are we still asking whether things are “allowed” in national politics?)

For me the winning message would be this: The State of the Nation is Bullshit.

In its present form, the SOTU is a post-WWII phenomenon — that is, an artifact of America’s Golden Age, when we ran the world and knew it. For a while it was mostly of interest to politics nerds as a species of Yankee Kremlinology, a set of signals including applause, slight changes in emphasis in the text, etc., that showed the cognoscenti (who were in those days not getting endless leaks from insiders hoping for mainstream media gigs after the fall) what was really going down in DC.

For example, it was considered a sign of weakness when Gerald Ford admitted in 1975 that the State of the Union (the actual one, not the speech) was not good. Bill Clinton, pre-Trump the longest SOTU speaker, was known for loading his speeches with policy details to give viewers the impression that he was smarter than they were so that they didn’t have to pay too close attention to what he was doing, which was hailed (by that tiny percentage of the public that gave a shit) as brilliant poli-sci jiu-jitsu.

9/11 gave George W. Bush the chance to play Crisis Leader, and for a few SOTUs that enlivened the event and made it seem consequential. But by the current era, not even COVID was able to bring back its luster; people were much more interested in those weird TV appearances where Tubby would yammer while Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx tried not to scream.

But every year the SOTU is treated by the Prestige Press like any other reliably contentious and therefore ratings-friendly event — like an election, a championship game, or a celebrity trial. This is especially true now, as a desperately unpopular cartoon character whom the big media outlets still love because he makes their job of sensationalizing current events easy (and also because, like him, they’re fascists) is back in the White House.

Predictably they treated this year’s shartfest as Defiant Trump with their usual imbecilic WWE-style coverage. All of them acted as if promising the Presidential Medal of Freedom — once a meaningful honor — to the goalie of the U.S. Olympic hockey team (solely because many Americans remember from decades-old propaganda that when the U.S. Olympic hockey team wins a gold medal it’s like Iwo Jima all over again) is a brilliant feat of statecraft rather than an Idiocracy outtake.

The argument in favor of running anti-Trump circuses against this is simple: Never let an opportunity go to waste, even if the opportunity is stacked 10-to-1 against you. (Which suits guys like Schumer and Jeffries, who are addicted to losing scenarios because their whole approach to politics is about coming in second every time.)

Well, I’m with the computer in War Games: The only winning move is not to play. Shit, everyone knows this is stupid. Does anyone outside a Cletus Safari diner believe Trump’s going to make their health care coverage cheaper? It’s not meant to be argued with — it’s just more bullshit set on fire and thrown at the camera. Arguing with this gibberish is like wrestling a pig.

Here’s how you play it: You act like nothing happened.

You want to know our reaction? To what? The State of the What? Ha. Bullshit artist says bullshit, it’s a day ending in Y, what else is new.

Now here’s another company his tariffs ruined, here’s another legal immigrant his goons murdered, here’s another embarrassment he visited on the United States abroad.

Now, you know what you do? You run down to the supermarket and see how much a pound of hamburger costs.

Yeah, I know, they won’t listen to me. And maybe you think it’s not worth even thinking of an alternative to how things seem to be now. All I can tell you is, look at Nixon’s 1974 State of the Union address — not even that bad of a speech, certainly nowhere near as much of a clown show as Trump’s, but similarly full of self-praise and triumphalism. Seven months later the guy was flown off the White House grounds in a helicopter. (Based on a caper that was, at one time, widely considered a distraction.) Dare to dream.