Trump’s State of the Union address was a celebration of one man’s achievements

Neither humbled nor humble, embattled yet still battling, boastful and bumptious, Donald Trump appeared before both a divided joint session of Congress and a polarized national television audience Tuesday evening, and in his effort to claw back the initiative in U.S. politics broke with presidential tradition even as he delivered a classic Trump performance.

While his predecessors took the occasion of the State of the Union address, required by the Constitution, to lay out a sober agenda for the country, Mr. Trump transformed this ritual into a partisan rally – which indeed it was, given the fact that the President, who repeatedly, harshly attacked Democrats (“You should be ashamed of yourselves”), looked out on the right side of the chamber to see Republicans or vacancies in the bench-style seats Democrats customarily occupy.

There was symbolism there: Many members of a party that has not shown the public a discrete alternative to the Trump movement did not show up for one of the few times in the five years of his presidency that, they might concede, Mr. Trump accurately and fully hewed to the letter of the Constitution.

In State of the Union address, Trump touts economic agenda amid declining support

For all the comfort the President’s opponents may be taking from his 39-per-cent approval rating in the latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, that is roughly the same rating (40 per cent) he earned from the public in the same period of his first presidency in the reckoning of the same pollster. By contrast, Bill Clinton, facing fresh incendiary charges that he had a sexual affair with a White House intern, went to the House of Representatives chamber in the same point in his second term in his presidency with a 71-per-cent approval rating.

Nevertheless, Mr. Trump, in a message that often took the form of an ungainly marriage of the traditional presidential set-piece address and his favoured undisciplined “weave,” pressed on, satisfying or ignoring the questions that his appearance posed. They include:

Did he break new ground in his address?

The closest thing to a new initiative, though one he has spoken vaguely of before, was his support of a health care rubric that would “stop all payments to insurance companies.”

He also spoke of forcing AI companies to provide for their own power needs and, as part of continued attacks on migrants (“we’re getting them the hell out of here fast”), he issued a swipe at the Somalis he said had “ransacked Minnesota.”

But overall, the theme of this year’s address was a celebration of America on its 250th birthday, a celebration of the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team – and a celebration of his own achievements, which he said produced “the golden age of America” after “a transformation like no one has ever seen before, a turnaround for the age” that rendered the country “bigger, better, richer, stronger than ever before.”

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What message did Tehran – and the American people – take from the President’s statements about Iran, which Mr. Trump has threatened by assembling a massive armada of military assets in the region?

Not much. And not having yet set out his goals for any military action and plans for the aftermath of a U.S. attack, he did not use his speech to explain why, how and for how long U.S. troops might be engaged in Iran, beyond saying, “No nation should ever doubt America’s resolve.”

Did Mr. Trump speak to Americans about the America they are experiencing?

“What’s striking in this speech is the boasting,” said Robert Rowland, the University of Kansas professor of communication studies who wrote The Rhetoric of Donald Trump: Nationalist Populism and American Democracy. “The public is not experiencing the economy he talked about.”

Did the President expand his views on international trade and explain further his response to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning his early set of duties?

Mr. Trump said his new global 15-per-cent tariff conformed to “fully approved alternative legal sanctions.” Some legal experts, however, feel they, too, will fail a Supreme Court test.

“There may be a dramatically clear argument that since we went to floating exchange rates [in 1973], the balance-of-payments provision that he’s using as a rationale for the tariffs has ceased to operate,” Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe said in an interview.

Were there any hints in his comportment or body language that gave indications of his anger with the high court?

Mr. Trump greeted four members of the court, three of whom voted to overturn his tariffs, with correctness, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whom he said just a few days ago was an “embarrassment” to her family.

What of the Democrats?

Some Democrats, perhaps as many as 60, decided not to attend at all, a silent protest that took them to an alternative “Peoples State of the Union” near the Capitol, even though House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York pleaded with Democrats to attend.

This symbolizes yet another chasm in American political life: the division among the Democrats about the way forward for the party. This took form in colliding Democratic responses.

The official reply was from newly elected Governor Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Senator Alex Padilla of California, both regarded as mainstream figures. The Working Families Party, a progressive group of lawmakers, chose a member of the progressive “Squad,” Representative Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, for its response.

Did Mr. Trump, in contravention of presidential tradition, speak harshly of his critics and his predecessor?

He made it clear that he thought he inherited “a nation in crisis,” particularly on immigration. The sports betting platform covers.com said in advance of the speech that there was a 93-per-cent chance Mr. Trump would mention former president Joe Biden. The bettors were right. Within the first 10 minutes of his address, Mr. Trump described Mr. Biden as “a disaster” and spoke of his “corrupt partners.”