Yeah as much as I enjoy being lied to incoherently by thievish martyrs, I've got to coach my son's little league game and then pour motor oil in my eye.
That’s the way I usually look at it. But Fearless Leader is sounding (and looking) crazier by the day, and I feel I’m being irresponsible if I don’t take a sustained gander this time, to assess for myself.
I'm usually a big believer in primary sources. I don't like to criticize something I actually haven't seen myself. If I didn't trust the Bulwark to summarize this speech for me, I'd have to watch it myself. Bleaurgh. This is one of the major reasons I pay my Bulwark subscription every year without hesitation.
I feel like I’ve seen enough of this president and the rest of the politicians at the SOTU to realize this country is doomed. I’m gonna tune out for my own sanity. Maybe browse some job openings abroad.
Last year after his "speech," the DirtyOldMan clasped the hand of John Roberts, looked him in the eye, and thanked him, saying "I won't forget it," referring to John's draping of donald in near complete immunity for all the crimes he has and is committing. John Roberts COULD realize that he has destabilized our democracy in service of the billionaires and white nationalists, but surely he won't. The supreme court is fully corrupted.
No, 6 of the 9 are. Thank goodness we have three who refuse to stop fighting, one of them a former Public Defender—we know about fighting against all odds for justice.
My fondest hope is that he goes off script immediately and works himself up into such screaming incoherent lunacy that the Secret Service have to escort (read: bodily remove) him from the room. And then no one will be able to argue that he's fit for office anymore and this nightmare can begin its denouement. I want to see speaking in tongues, disturbing twitchy dancing, plagues of frogs jumping out of his mouth... the lot! Let's exorcise this mofo!
Re. your fondest hope…I share the hope that Trump’s derangement will communicate itself to his cabinet members who will have the balls to send him off to the lunatic asylum. Yeah I know that 99% of Americans find Boy JD to be an odious sycophant opportunist, but he is at least mostly sane.
To paraphrase Miracle Max, “Mostly sane I can work with.”
So, other than maybe the frog part, I guess you're saying having had to watch his standard campaign events this last time around wasn't enough for you..
I know we're joking around, but I think there was a real difference in how completely unhinged he was in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs. Yeah, it's his baby project. And yeah, he thought he had them on side. But the crazy X-girlfriend-esque rabbit-boiling escalation seemed to me to be a whole nuther level of madness. I think he's really losing it. And I'd love to see them have to forcibly remove him from the podium because he's breaking shit or throwing things or something else extreme.
I believe that he's had a stroke. He has to have something going on if he's sending dry-docked hospital ships out to Greenland with a surprised Landry caught off guard. Sundowning on untruth unsocial all night long.
To the Bulwark crew: thank you for watching the State of the Union speech, so I don't have to. I used to watch them, but I was so angry after Bill Clinton's bloviating in 1994, I resolved to never watch again. That is a life choice I am happy to sustain.
You and me both. Whatever happened to editors that these speeches can't be boiled down to 15 minutes, tops? Politicians are so hungry for applause, and Trump is hungriest.
I watched a lot of Trump’s first “State of the Union” in 2017 (technically not a state of the union but the joint address to Congress since it was his first year) and it was awful. It was tame compared to every other later address/SOTU but that was the time when most Democrats were trying to wish cast him as normal.
Now it’s no different than his campaign rallies. I try to always follow what’s going on but tonight might be a hard pass. Seeing Trump lie over and over again is like seeing a monkey fling their feces … it’s what they do. But seeing the pathetic Republicans fawn over him like 12 year old Taylor Swift fans at a concert is really what is too hard to watch.
The one notable thing about tonight's SOTU is that I think it's DJT's last one. Honestly...I don't see how on God's green earth that he makes it to another one. Something's going to give...it has to...this is unsustainable as a country.
So many “coulds” in Bill’s commentary. But we know Donny Double Chin is incapable of any action which would lead him to admit fault. No tonight, I’m hoping he rips into the Court as many of the Justices sit there in the front row. I’m hoping he gets angry because there are Epstein victims in the crowd. And I’m setting the over/under on length at 107.5 minutes.
RE: "Trump could speak directly to the Epstein survivors who will be in the House gallery. But surely he won’t."
So they should speak to him, standing up silently as one up in the center balcony where, try as he might, he could not avoid seeing them from the very beginning of his performance to his very last word, they themselves never uttering so much as a single word but simply standing with calm, collected dignity, all dressed in matching shirts clearly printed with these seven words for him and all to see:
WE'RE STILL HERE...
STILL WAITING FOR JUSTICE
That would surely say more than anyone or anything else could.
What do you mean his poll numbers are at 40%? DJT has already noted those are fakes, and a ‘silent majority’ supports the wonderful things and trajectory he has set this country on. How could the greatest president on earth be down in the polls; that is simply impossible. The people love him!
Every time - and it's so very often - some pro-democracy journalist reports Trumps sinking popularity in polls as a positive sign, I get a reboot of the Kafka-esque WTF alienation the fuels my debilitating spirit-sapping depression.
Because that sort of positive take is a remnant of normie politics, and that's not where we are. At all. The fact that a psychopathic, totally corrupt, hate-mongering, pedo-protecting, mass murdering fascist has a 35%+ approval rating remains a mind fuck. Normie politics is as dead as Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Of course, the horror goes beyond the fact 1 in 3 are under the sway of a person-cult that would have been considered hair-on-fire alarming at 1 in 10 in the fore times, but that the big money, the power elite, the bazillionaire oligarchs AND corporate capital are backing the MAGAMonster by, what, 80%???
We've had ten years now of normie politicos opining that if we just hang on a big longer, the madness will dissipate, the cultists and coddlers will come to their senses, the old laws of political gravity will ultimately prevail. If at first you don't succeed, wish wish again...
The task, it still seems to me, is to figure out how this cult functions, such that we could imagine DOING SOMETHING to treat the mental illness, rather than just hoping it collapses under the weight of it's own craziness. Because, if there's any validity in applying that lingo, I'll note that's not how DSM-listed mental illness works.
Yeah, there's the challenge of grappling with a cult. However, I think it goes deeper than one personality -- there also appears to be a significant split in the culture between blue and red America. I doubt that will go away just because Trump does.
One way the split manifests is how people get their information. I routinely see on my local NextDoor feed MAGA types insist that the mainstream media can't be trusted on basic political facts. They fail to see the irony of presenting their "facts" -- disinformation from sources of blatant propaganda. War is peace and black is white.
What's also curious is that when these folks are on the losing side of policy battles in my blue state that they declare it a result of a "dictatorship" . . . even though a given piece of legislation was passed by duly elected Democrats in an entirely normal -- and legal -- fashion.
These folks are essentially counterrevolutionaries. They want to tear down our existing democratic system and replace it with an authoritarian nationalist regime right out of the 19th Century. Either you are with them or against them.
If that reflects mental illness, I don't see how the field of counseling can do much to respond to it, e.g., they have thus far been slow to deal with the rise of cults. My guess is that this is partly because mental health practitioners try to avoid delving into political realms.
Like one of my Senators and my Representative (who gave her guest ticket to a survivor of Epstein’s abuse)I refuse to give the tantruming orange toddler any attention by watching. They will give their own messages to their constituents instead while he blathers on. My other Senator and our Washington Secretary of State will be there to highlight the disgusting disenfranchisement of voters in the SAVE America Act. Nice triple teaming on their part.
I wish I could say the same about my delegation, but Montana's MAGA delegation is trumpeting how our high schools will now have TPUSA clubs. In better news, the State GOP congressional delegation had a mini revolt and nine of them joined the Dems to keep the Medicaid expansion program. Plus there will be referendum to ban Montana corporations from donating for any Montana office. I'm sure that's why the next generation of Montana voters are getting their TPUSA indoctrination opportunity.
I hope John Tester “puts some flies on the water” to remind Montanans what real Senators do for their regular constituents. In my rural area of Washington the enthusiasm for Trump has largely disappeared (the Trump signs have mostly disappeared) and even those who still support him are questioning his arming of ICE and suggesting, because of Pretti, that carrying a firearm justifies government interference, not to mention the cost of living because of tariffs.
Last time I saw Trump paraphernalia was at June's No Kings rally. It was a flag on one truck driving around the Capital. Montana is libertarian first, so Trump's comments on armed protesters went down poorly, and ICE's concentrating on small Canadian border communities has not received any kudos. Ranchers are fit to be tied for any number of reasons starting with Trump's tariff free massive Argentinian beef imports. Most MAGAs around here are very quiet.
I couldn't take Biden's full SOTU speech so the odds I will watch Trump tonight are pretty close to zero. Besides, I could write the damn thing myself since I have heard his main talking points over and over again. If Stephen Miller's tirade on Jake Tapper's show are any indication of what he put in Trump's speech, it will not include any reversals of policy. When Tapper rolls his eyes and just gives up, you know tonight will be bad. Once Trump goes off the prompter it will only get worser and worser, the worsest.
I'd check Kalshi and a couple of other places to see what the prediction market's saying about the odds that I'll watch Trump's STOU tonight, but I don't think they post numbers <0%.
I am going to skip the airing of the grievances tonight. I would prefer to light my hair on fire and put it out with a baseball bat.
I think I’ll shave my head with a cheese grater while chewing on aluminum foil . . .
😃 😀 😄 😁 🤣 😂 😃
Best to wait for Tim's live discussion post speech -
I'm not sure I have enough Scotch in the liquor cabinet to get me through the speech. Besides, just the sound of his voice makes me retch.
It's a tough job. Someone has got to do it. Tim is the man for it!
Given how often Trump airs grievances, one would think that every day is Festivus.
Someone made a bingo card with all of his favorite grievances.
Don't have enough room, Jeri.
But not for the rest of us.
Good choice! This will be so painful, anyone watching would probably need an accelerant for that fire; hoping to get it over with quickly!….:)
We are talking Trump here. Quick is out.
Thanks for my AM LOL.
I plan to go to bed at 9p so I won't hear the pinging of texts reacting to the rage bait.
I'm with you. Let's just skip to the feats of strength.
I hoping his speech gets a zero Neilson rating, so I will listen to the lowlights tomorrow.
Out of the park home run on a 3 and 2 count, this!
I see what you did there!
Yep. I'll pick up the high(?)lights and commentary here tomorrow. Sleep is better without nightmares.
😂😂😂😂
Same. I cannot do that to myself; it’s too painful. I will read about it tomorrow.
Yeah as much as I enjoy being lied to incoherently by thievish martyrs, I've got to coach my son's little league game and then pour motor oil in my eye.
Festivus for the rest of us, lol!
Actually, I'm right there with you Donna. he's not going to say anything of worth. It'll be a whine-fest.
,
I won't be watching. Being lied to for two hours is not how I choose to spend an evening. Plus, if viewership is low it will drive trump crazy!
I feel like the best thing I can do for everyone is not give Trump increased ratings.
That’s the way I usually look at it. But Fearless Leader is sounding (and looking) crazier by the day, and I feel I’m being irresponsible if I don’t take a sustained gander this time, to assess for myself.
I'm usually a big believer in primary sources. I don't like to criticize something I actually haven't seen myself. If I didn't trust the Bulwark to summarize this speech for me, I'd have to watch it myself. Bleaurgh. This is one of the major reasons I pay my Bulwark subscription every year without hesitation.
I feel like I’ve seen enough of this president and the rest of the politicians at the SOTU to realize this country is doomed. I’m gonna tune out for my own sanity. Maybe browse some job openings abroad.
I understand.
I also understand the drive to see the Mad King and how far the madness is reaching into his soul. It's good to have visual ID on the problem.
We have all lived thru this for ten years. I plan to listen to what Colbert and Kimmel say afterwards though.
Same. I can only listen to the orange thing drone on for 10 seconds before I lose my tolerance for it.
Last year after his "speech," the DirtyOldMan clasped the hand of John Roberts, looked him in the eye, and thanked him, saying "I won't forget it," referring to John's draping of donald in near complete immunity for all the crimes he has and is committing. John Roberts COULD realize that he has destabilized our democracy in service of the billionaires and white nationalists, but surely he won't. The supreme court is fully corrupted.
No, 6 of the 9 are. Thank goodness we have three who refuse to stop fighting, one of them a former Public Defender—we know about fighting against all odds for justice.
But did John Roberts comment afterwards, as others have, on how warm and soft Trump’s hand was?
“That Chief Justice, what a grip. Like a vise! My hand’s still bruised a year later… shook my hand so hard my left hand bruised too!”
Amazing! We finally have a logical explanation for Loose Cannon's bruised hands.
No...but the way Amy Coney Barrett looked away in disgust at the moment was pretty telling.
See, I don't even want to think about that. Or maybe I will .
" oh God that's not your hand " .
EEEEEEEEE ! ! ! !
My fondest hope is that he goes off script immediately and works himself up into such screaming incoherent lunacy that the Secret Service have to escort (read: bodily remove) him from the room. And then no one will be able to argue that he's fit for office anymore and this nightmare can begin its denouement. I want to see speaking in tongues, disturbing twitchy dancing, plagues of frogs jumping out of his mouth... the lot! Let's exorcise this mofo!
OOOH that is the only possibility that would warrant my watching. Imagine a Linda Blair head turn. Break out the incense and holy water!
Right?!
Re. your fondest hope…I share the hope that Trump’s derangement will communicate itself to his cabinet members who will have the balls to send him off to the lunatic asylum. Yeah I know that 99% of Americans find Boy JD to be an odious sycophant opportunist, but he is at least mostly sane.
To paraphrase Miracle Max, “Mostly sane I can work with.”
Twitchy dancing is his regular style. Maybe shaking some Castaneda and more hand movements.
So, other than maybe the frog part, I guess you're saying having had to watch his standard campaign events this last time around wasn't enough for you..
I know we're joking around, but I think there was a real difference in how completely unhinged he was in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on tariffs. Yeah, it's his baby project. And yeah, he thought he had them on side. But the crazy X-girlfriend-esque rabbit-boiling escalation seemed to me to be a whole nuther level of madness. I think he's really losing it. And I'd love to see them have to forcibly remove him from the podium because he's breaking shit or throwing things or something else extreme.
Agree his public displays of ill temperament and declining abilities overall are getting worse.
And as you said below, Ya gotta have a dream.
That would be awesome.
We have similar imaginations and delusional fantasies...
Ya gotta have a dream.
Especially during this waking nightmare...
If that’s what it takes! I’d settle for foaming at the mouth, going full Howard Beal, and running down to punch out Amy Coney Barrett.
She would probably kick his fat ass halfway to mar a pedo leggo .
One thing we know for sure; Trump will be heavily medicated for the speech. I suspect he is on a roller coaster of uppers and tranquilizers.
I want to let his carers know that if they get his meds mixed up so that he loses his shit on live TV, they will be American heroes. DO IT, GUYS!
The address before Xmas was riveting. I thought he was winding up to a stroke.
I believe that he's had a stroke. He has to have something going on if he's sending dry-docked hospital ships out to Greenland with a surprised Landry caught off guard. Sundowning on untruth unsocial all night long.
I love watching Tim and Sam, but I'll probably pass on tonight, boys. My sock drawer is looking very disorganized.
Also, there's a typo about 4 paragraphs down: "37 percent approval, 59 percent approval."
800% increase!
Bigly !
State of the Union:
We’re F$cked
To the Bulwark crew: thank you for watching the State of the Union speech, so I don't have to. I used to watch them, but I was so angry after Bill Clinton's bloviating in 1994, I resolved to never watch again. That is a life choice I am happy to sustain.
You and me both. Whatever happened to editors that these speeches can't be boiled down to 15 minutes, tops? Politicians are so hungry for applause, and Trump is hungriest.
Demagogues and dictators love public speaking. Castro and Hitler could go on for hours (Castro did one that was 7 1/2 hours, Hitler’s were 2-21/2.).
James - hey, there’s been some recent news about Bloviation Inflation!
I watched a lot of Trump’s first “State of the Union” in 2017 (technically not a state of the union but the joint address to Congress since it was his first year) and it was awful. It was tame compared to every other later address/SOTU but that was the time when most Democrats were trying to wish cast him as normal.
Now it’s no different than his campaign rallies. I try to always follow what’s going on but tonight might be a hard pass. Seeing Trump lie over and over again is like seeing a monkey fling their feces … it’s what they do. But seeing the pathetic Republicans fawn over him like 12 year old Taylor Swift fans at a concert is really what is too hard to watch.
Drinking game - Jell-O shots at every mention of 2020 election being stolen. No one’s going home sober
The lightest of light beers. You'll kill people otherwise.
Raw milk, then?
RFKjr yes. You and I, no.
Bacardi 151 ought to do the trick !
No one’s going home period they’ll be unable to move after that much alcohol poisoning.
Great analogy!
Trumps SoTU address will be an insult to Monkeys who throw their feces..
The one notable thing about tonight's SOTU is that I think it's DJT's last one. Honestly...I don't see how on God's green earth that he makes it to another one. Something's going to give...it has to...this is unsustainable as a country.
wouldn't that be nice
So many “coulds” in Bill’s commentary. But we know Donny Double Chin is incapable of any action which would lead him to admit fault. No tonight, I’m hoping he rips into the Court as many of the Justices sit there in the front row. I’m hoping he gets angry because there are Epstein victims in the crowd. And I’m setting the over/under on length at 107.5 minutes.
But will justice Alito shake his head and mouth ‘not true’ when Trump rips into them and lies, or will he merely nod along in agreement.
It would be worth having a camera trained solely on Alito.
he wimped out last time, and may again tonight
Double chin ? I thought that he was storing big Macs there for the lean times ahead .
RE: "Trump could speak directly to the Epstein survivors who will be in the House gallery. But surely he won’t."
So they should speak to him, standing up silently as one up in the center balcony where, try as he might, he could not avoid seeing them from the very beginning of his performance to his very last word, they themselves never uttering so much as a single word but simply standing with calm, collected dignity, all dressed in matching shirts clearly printed with these seven words for him and all to see:
WE'RE STILL HERE...
STILL WAITING FOR JUSTICE
That would surely say more than anyone or anything else could.
What do you mean his poll numbers are at 40%? DJT has already noted those are fakes, and a ‘silent majority’ supports the wonderful things and trajectory he has set this country on. How could the greatest president on earth be down in the polls; that is simply impossible. The people love him!
Maybe the silent majority will stay silent, at home, on election day.....
Trump may yet learn that ‘silence is golden’! Not the worst outcome.
My fingers nearly slipped off the keyboard as the sarcasm drips from my computer monitor...
Tender, soft citizens, so palsied by power,
Can we rally and march through Liberty's dark hour?
Freedom ain't free,
She takes work to be:
By shared sweat alone shall our Republic yet flower.
For the love of the Creator, at least make it scan properly!
Every time - and it's so very often - some pro-democracy journalist reports Trumps sinking popularity in polls as a positive sign, I get a reboot of the Kafka-esque WTF alienation the fuels my debilitating spirit-sapping depression.
Because that sort of positive take is a remnant of normie politics, and that's not where we are. At all. The fact that a psychopathic, totally corrupt, hate-mongering, pedo-protecting, mass murdering fascist has a 35%+ approval rating remains a mind fuck. Normie politics is as dead as Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Of course, the horror goes beyond the fact 1 in 3 are under the sway of a person-cult that would have been considered hair-on-fire alarming at 1 in 10 in the fore times, but that the big money, the power elite, the bazillionaire oligarchs AND corporate capital are backing the MAGAMonster by, what, 80%???
We've had ten years now of normie politicos opining that if we just hang on a big longer, the madness will dissipate, the cultists and coddlers will come to their senses, the old laws of political gravity will ultimately prevail. If at first you don't succeed, wish wish again...
The task, it still seems to me, is to figure out how this cult functions, such that we could imagine DOING SOMETHING to treat the mental illness, rather than just hoping it collapses under the weight of it's own craziness. Because, if there's any validity in applying that lingo, I'll note that's not how DSM-listed mental illness works.
Yeah, there's the challenge of grappling with a cult. However, I think it goes deeper than one personality -- there also appears to be a significant split in the culture between blue and red America. I doubt that will go away just because Trump does.
One way the split manifests is how people get their information. I routinely see on my local NextDoor feed MAGA types insist that the mainstream media can't be trusted on basic political facts. They fail to see the irony of presenting their "facts" -- disinformation from sources of blatant propaganda. War is peace and black is white.
What's also curious is that when these folks are on the losing side of policy battles in my blue state that they declare it a result of a "dictatorship" . . . even though a given piece of legislation was passed by duly elected Democrats in an entirely normal -- and legal -- fashion.
These folks are essentially counterrevolutionaries. They want to tear down our existing democratic system and replace it with an authoritarian nationalist regime right out of the 19th Century. Either you are with them or against them.
If that reflects mental illness, I don't see how the field of counseling can do much to respond to it, e.g., they have thus far been slow to deal with the rise of cults. My guess is that this is partly because mental health practitioners try to avoid delving into political realms.
Like one of my Senators and my Representative (who gave her guest ticket to a survivor of Epstein’s abuse)I refuse to give the tantruming orange toddler any attention by watching. They will give their own messages to their constituents instead while he blathers on. My other Senator and our Washington Secretary of State will be there to highlight the disgusting disenfranchisement of voters in the SAVE America Act. Nice triple teaming on their part.
I wish I could say the same about my delegation, but Montana's MAGA delegation is trumpeting how our high schools will now have TPUSA clubs. In better news, the State GOP congressional delegation had a mini revolt and nine of them joined the Dems to keep the Medicaid expansion program. Plus there will be referendum to ban Montana corporations from donating for any Montana office. I'm sure that's why the next generation of Montana voters are getting their TPUSA indoctrination opportunity.
I hope John Tester “puts some flies on the water” to remind Montanans what real Senators do for their regular constituents. In my rural area of Washington the enthusiasm for Trump has largely disappeared (the Trump signs have mostly disappeared) and even those who still support him are questioning his arming of ICE and suggesting, because of Pretti, that carrying a firearm justifies government interference, not to mention the cost of living because of tariffs.
Last time I saw Trump paraphernalia was at June's No Kings rally. It was a flag on one truck driving around the Capital. Montana is libertarian first, so Trump's comments on armed protesters went down poorly, and ICE's concentrating on small Canadian border communities has not received any kudos. Ranchers are fit to be tied for any number of reasons starting with Trump's tariff free massive Argentinian beef imports. Most MAGAs around here are very quiet.
I think it’s pretty awesome that both Jon Tester and Steve Bullock are taking part in Defiance.org’s alt SOTU event tonight: https://www.defiance.org/sotu 🐸
Wow, that sounds like the young Nazis during hitler's regime.
wait I thought Montana had 2 senators and one rep- so how did 9 join the dems ?
That was state level. We actually have 2 reps on the National level and all four are MAGAtards. We might see some change in that after 2026.
I honestly cannot think of a worse use of my time and attention than by watching him spew tonight.
I couldn't take Biden's full SOTU speech so the odds I will watch Trump tonight are pretty close to zero. Besides, I could write the damn thing myself since I have heard his main talking points over and over again. If Stephen Miller's tirade on Jake Tapper's show are any indication of what he put in Trump's speech, it will not include any reversals of policy. When Tapper rolls his eyes and just gives up, you know tonight will be bad. Once Trump goes off the prompter it will only get worser and worser, the worsest.
I'd check Kalshi and a couple of other places to see what the prediction market's saying about the odds that I'll watch Trump's STOU tonight, but I don't think they post numbers <0%.