With the shutdown temporarily abated, Donald Trump is getting what he really wanted: that night in which everyone applauds and applauds and applauds some more every trivial, nonsensical thing he says. What will Trump say when he wanders into the House of Representatives Tuesday evening? Expect a lot of bragging. In every interview, picking out the slightest bit of new information means waiting out Trump reciting statistics, often wildly inaccurate statistics, about how he has not yet managed to screw up the Obama recovery, despite his best efforts and storm clouds on the horizon. Do not expect to hear about those clouds. Do not expect to hear about the billions in damage already done to the economy by Trump’s initial shutdown. And, of course, do not expect to hear anything about the looming existential threat of climate change.
But once he’s past explaining how he’s done more, so much more, so, so much more than anyone ever, including that slacker in the first week of Genesis, what will Trump say? Trump has promised that the State of the Union address will be “exciting.” That’s not good. Because while “I’m sorry, and I’m out of here” might thrill the nation, it’s not likely to be Trump’s idea of excitement. Instead, Trump has apparently spent hours practicing this speech—with Stephen Miller. That’s a warning sign that the excitement here may be more in the form of being stuck on the tracks in front of an onrushing train. The Trump White House has also described the upcoming speech as “aspirational” and “visionary.” Put those things together with written by Miller … and there’s a lot of seriously uncomfortable potential.
But whether Trump’s speech will be exciting as in “I’m declaring a national emergency and stealing billions for my giant monument to xenophobia!” or exciting as in “The missiles are flying right now!” isn’t all that clear. The Washington Post’s deep analysis focuses on looking for critical things like Nancy Pelosi’s facial expressions, and how often Democrats stand. Talking Points Memo tries to predict Trump’s speech by stirring through invited guests as if they were tea leaves.
NBC indicates that Trump is definitely going to talk about immigration. This may go beyond fresh demands for his wall or pre-announcing the world’s least threatening emergency. Trump is likely to proposed a broader immigration plan, one that includes all of those things he’s asked for before, including an end to preferred immigration status for close relatives, and implementing a “merit-based” immigration system. Trump will then wax … not lyrical, but at least telepromptical about how other nations do it that way. And he’ll completely ignore the fact that the United States’ history of being more open to a diverse flow of immigrants at all economic levels, rather than trying to cherry-pick the wealthy and the educated, is exactly what has given the United States two centuries of immigrant-driven success.
NBC also points out that Trump has been selling two very different messages. The White House has released a single short excerpt that sounds as if it could be the closing line to the speech: "Together we can break decades of political stalemate. We can bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions, and unlock the extraordinary promise of America's future. The decision is ours to make." But at the same time, Trump is sending messages to his supporters that Democrats “have taken their obstruction and radicalism to a whole new UN-AMERICAN level.”
As he’s done ever since he started his presidential campaign, Trump is likely to present his ideas—or at least Miller’s ideas—as if they’re somehow “common sense” and not the far-right ravings of a nationalist protecting a utopia that never existed. And Trump will assert that anyone who doesn’t go along with the most radical agenda to hit the nation since the first “America First” movement went down is a radical. Because projection—it’s what Trump does.
Making predictions about the details of Trump’s speech isn’t possible, and counting clap-time is supremely silly. It won’t be a good speech, because Trump isn’t capable of one. It won’t be a bipartisan speech, because Miller isn’t capable of one. It will be a speech full of Trump bragging on Trump, because that’s every Trump speech.
The best advice is to just focus on Nancy Pelosi. Not on figuring out the meaning of her expression. Just on her presence. Because Pelosi in that speaker’s chair means that for almost everything Trump proposes, there’s a simple, two-letter answer.
Oh, and … yes, unfortunately, Daily Kos will cover the State of the Union speech as it occurs on Tuesday evening.