Tonight, Donald J. Trump whose legacy will include the third president to be impeached will give the State of the Union address. Knowing how his account of anything he does is in the realm of what could be called an illusion of grandeur, expect him to open his address with,
Madam Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans: Under my presidency, the state of the union has never been better.
Trump probably won’t open his address with those exact words, but the general theme will be along those lines.
If we were to ask an objective and neutral political observer what is the state of the nation under the Trump’s presidency, I believe that he or she would say that the “State of the Union is in disrepair.” This is not a hard conclusion to make unless of course the truth doesn’t matter anymore and Washington is veiled in hypocrisy.
Typically, a president will have significant accomplishments to highlight in the state of the union address. For Trump that won’t be a problem because everything he does is great, perfect, or no other president has been able to achieve. He will point to the economy and take credit for the lowest unemployment ever, the high stock market, getting NATO to put more money into the organization, and maybe his immigration policies.
For each of the achievements Trump will tout, it is not obvious that there is a positive impact in people’s lives. Even if we give him credit for whatever accomplishments he has made, they have been eclipsed by what seems to be chaos in his decisions and undertakings. It is these mistakes and his unacceptable behaviors that got him impeached by the House.
While the Republican controlled senate is not going to remove him from office for his attempted “shake down” of Ukraine, this behavior is egregious and unprecedented. The failure to hold Trump accountable for his reckless behaviors is a reflection on the degraded values of politicians. Degraded values that are manifested by hypocrisy, lack of principles, and lack of integrity.
The state of the union cannot be said to be good when a president violates his oath of office and the constitution. The whole saga of Trump’s phone call to Ukraine President Zelensky was a scheme that came out of the Machiavellian playbook. Federal statutes stipulate that it is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U. S. election. person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U. S. election. This is what Trump did and behaviors like this is definitely not good for America and the world.