State of the Union, 2018

At my wife’s insistence we watched the 2018 State of the Union message last night. It had the usual recitations of accomplishments. There was also the wish list we’ve become accustomed to hearing. Is it my imagination or were there more than the typical number of call-outs?

I don’t care for President Trump’s prosody or diction, e.g. stacking modifiers “very”, “beautiful”, but I thought it was okay as these messages go. Neither a hit nor a flop.

If you were looking for division, you found it and I’m confident the opinion pages will be full of emotional condemnations of the president’s divisive SOTU. If you were looking for unity, you found that, too. What’s the opposite of a “dog whistle”? Deafness that only the hyper-focused recognize? I’m also quite confident that Mr. Trump’s supporters will proclaim it the best SOTU ever.

I think that highlights that the gap between our differing views is real, not just posturing, and will be hard if not impossible to bridge. The 50%+1 style of governance isn’t working and won’t be improved by changing who’s in charge.

I don’t think the Democrats did themselves much good last night by maintaining their sullen, taciturn demeanor. They may have thought it was resolute but I thought it was churlish. As me auld mither used to say it’s not the man it’s the cloth.

Update

The editors’ of the New York Times response was more balanced than I expected. After reciting a list of the benign things that have happened in the last year, they follow up with their complaints:

Despite promising a $1 trillion infrastructure plan a year ago, a phantom plan whose price tag he raised to $1.5 trillion on Tuesday, he has yet to do anything to fix rusting bridges and faltering rail lines. His tax plan will undermine local efforts to make improvements around the country. He has yet to take serious action to end the opioid crisis. (“We have to do something about it,” he said Tuesday night, rather pathetically.) He has rubbed raw the nation’s wounds of bigotry and sexism. Without study or discernment, he has stripped away regulations meant to restrain climate change and to protect consumers. He seems utterly indifferent to improving an education system that is the foundation of the global competitiveness he insists he cares so much about. He’s deepened America’s commitment to Afghanistan with no exit strategy, and he’s raised tensions in the Middle East to no clear end. By gratuitously alienating allies and upending trade deals, he has eased the way for China’s hegemony.

I haven’t bothered to reproduce the many hyperlinks in the quote above. There are a dozen of them. They do bring up one question to my mind—are good intentions enough?

he has stripped away regulations meant to restrain climate change and to protect consumers.

Their study and discernment doesn’t seem to have reached as far as measuring the actual net effects of the regulations. We need to start reckoning the value of policies against what has happened rather than against what their proponents wanted to happen.

E. J. Dionne’s column was about what I would have expected. Here’s an example of the divisiveness he complains about:

“All Americans deserve accountability and respect. And that’s what we are giving to our wonderful heroes our veterans,” Trump said. “So tonight, I call on Congress to empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”

This sounded like an attack on the entire civil service system. It sounded like a demand by Trump that he and those who work for him have the right to fire federal employees whenever he or they feel like it. Perhaps this idea will come with safeguards, perhaps not. Trump didn’t say.

I guess I’m tone deaf. It didn’t sound like that to me. It sounded like a call for long overdue civil service reform. Is that inherently divisive?

Dana Milbank’s reaction was even sharper:

When he said “we proudly stand for the national anthem” — a reference to black NFL players who have protested by taking a knee — there was a lusty roar from the GOP side and wan looks from Democrats. Trump applauded the cheering Republicans.

which I found to be weak tea. This is more to the point:

He drew Democrats’ heckling by alleging that “a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.” Trump, in the context of immigrant violence, even tried to make off with the “dreamer” label applied to young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. He said his duty is to “defend Americans, to protect their safety. . . . Because Americans are dreamers too.” By implication: The “dreamers” are not American.

quoting what will undoubtedly be seen as the most memorable line in the speech. Is that divisive or a case of where you stand depends on where you sit?

The editors of the Washington Post cited divisiveness as well:

HAVE A president’s words ever rung more hollow? In his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Trump spoke of “what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people and one American family.” Yet Mr. Trump could not avoid, even for an hour, lacing his address with divisive references to hot-button issues and graceless attacks on his predecessors: to “disastrous Obamacare,” “the mistakes of past administrations,” “the era of economic surrender” and more.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal strike a note closer to what I heard:

Democrats want to legalize the young adult Dreamer immigrants, spend money on roads and bridges, and give ex-cons a second chance at a better life. More dangerously for the economy, more Democrats than Republicans share Mr. Trump’s protectionist views on trade, which we were glad to see him play down on Tuesday night.

Mr. Trump’s immigration message was a mix of rhetorical edginess with policy compromise. He spent far too much time flogging immigration as an issue of crime rather than highlighting the many contributions that newcomers make. He also included a gratuitous gibe that “Americans are Dreamers too,” which will insult more people than it persuades. This rhetoric may have been intended to placate supporters who are nervous about Mr. Trump’s willingness to negotiate with Democrats, but he missed a chance to seem more big-hearted.

On the other hand, Mr. Trump’s legislative offer last week is a bid for compromise between left and right that includes a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers who were brought to the U.S. as children. That’s far more than the 700,000 or so that applied for work permits under Barack Obama’s illegal order—and far more than GOP restrictionists want.

Did the Democrats already signal their response? If compromise is betrayal and you won’t accept anything you want unless you get everything you want, it’s the end of republican government.