DONALD TRUMP`S UNWORTHY STATE OF THE UNION / THE ECONOMIST

Donald Trump’s unworthy state of the union

An address not fit for America’s 250th birthday

Photograph: Getty Images

At the beginning of his first term as president, Donald Trump used his address to a joint session of Congress to deliver “a message of unity and strength”, urging bipartisan action as he looked nine years ahead to America’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of its declaration of independence. 

“What will America look like as we reach our 250th year?” he wondered then.

As Mr Trump marked the arrival of that anniversary in his state-of-the-union speech on February 24th, 

America does not look at all like the country that, on the occasion of his rookie outing nine years ago, he tried to conjure. 

Mr Trump began that address, in February 2017, by observing that it was Black History Month and declaring there was still work to be done on “our nation’s path toward civil rights”. 

He urged support from Congress for some initiatives that remain central to his politics, such as building a border wall, but also for others that have long since shrivelled, such as “positive immigration reform”, along with “accessible and affordable” child care, new investment in women’s health and for “clean air and clean water”, and a “rebirth of hope” in “our neglected inner cities”. 

Mr Trump told Congress then, “True love for our people requires us to find common ground.”

This week, as Mr Trump heralded the American anniversary, he still touted grandiose visions—of a “golden age” and a “turnaround for the ages”, achieved in just his first year back in office—but they did not include any summons to an American common ground. 

He did not mention unity. 

Instead he repeatedly called Democratic congressmen “sick” and “crazy” and said they were “destroying our country”. 

If they had power, he warned, they would open America’s borders to “some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world”, the likes of the “Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota” by committing fraud. 

He said Democrats can win elections only by cheating.

What happened, in the past decade, to the president who once talked about unity? 

And to the country where that idea still seemed plausible, or at least desirable, in its politics? 

An impeachment, a pandemic, a racial reckoning over police violence, an insurrection to block the peaceful transfer of power and then another impeachment, plus assorted lawsuits and prosecutions probably all played roles. 

So did Mr Trump’s growing confidence in the power of his polarising politics. 

After all, he dutifully read that first speech to Congress off the teleprompter, and it lasted just an hour. 

This time, he set a numbing record for such speeches, at an hour and 48 minutes, and he was most engaged with his material when he departed from his script, though his “weave” became ever more frayed as the evening wore on. 

(“Space Force is my baby, because we did that,” he said, to entirely Republican applause, though he said nothing about what the force was up to.)

Consider the House chamber from the president’s vantage point. 

To his right sat Democratic representatives, who he believes, with reason, will support him in almost nothing he does. 

Directly in front of him sat four justices of the Supreme Court, which, though dominated by conservatives, had just signalled its commitment to its independent authority. 

By ruling unlawful his novel assertion of a presidential power to impose border taxes at whim, it stripped Mr Trump of his prized thunderbolts, his most reliable means of dominating the world’s attention and extracting obeisance from abroad. 

“An unfortunate ruling”, Mr Trump called it in his speech, with uncharacteristic restraint.

With those two constituencies beyond his control, Mr Trump focused his message upon the Republican representatives in the chamber. 

He cannot afford to lose them. 

But he knows that, with midterm elections this autumn, they are growing restive. 

Recent polling shows that public approval of Mr Trump is plumbing depths not seen since the insurrection of January 6th 2021. 

Key constituencies, including independent voters, Latinos and even young Republicans, are losing confidence in him. 

Fully six in ten respondents told the Marist poll this month that America is worse off now than a year ago.

SOTU voce

Although Mr Trump has savaged Republican members of Congress who have broken with him in recent months on tariffs or making war, he was careful in his speech to make no such criticisms. 

He offered few new policy ideas. 

But his open contempt, if not hatred, of Democrats along with his trademark braggadocio about his own accomplishments helped draw Republicans together by signalling his intention to go on the offensive over the economy and immigration. 

Seeming, as usual, less like the House speaker than a house elf, Mike Johnson sat perched over Mr Trump’s left shoulder, grinning eagerly at his faintest witticism; the president has learned that Mr Johnson will serve as his loyal whip rather than the leader of a coequal branch of government.

Mr Trump did supply some uplift. 

The Olympic men’s hockey team and the heroic servicemen he pointed to in the gallery were reassuring evidence that, in this 250th year, Americans still have passions apart from politics and values that transcend partisanship. 

But when it came to politics, culture war substituted for any loftier ambition; Mr Trump’s invocation of Black History Month in 2017 gave way in 2026 to acronymic sloganeering: “We ended DEI in America!” 

On a momentous question, whether America will again attack Iran and if so why, the president offered only a muddle. 

On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine he had no new vision for ending the war. 

He had nothing to say about the challenge posed by China or the promise and peril of artificial intelligence. 

This speech is likely to be remembered only for its length, but its effect will be to further shrink the significance of the state-of-the-union address.