UPDATE: Wednesday, Feb 25, 2026 · 4:28:41 PM +00:00 · xaxnar
Timothy Snyder also has an interesting analysis that complements O’Brien’s — see update below.
The short version is, Trump is failing at fascism. He needs a big quick war to claim victory over an enemy, and can’t pull it off.
And so the state of Trump is that he is stuck. He is failing at fascism. He can break things, but he cannot make things. He can bluster, but he cannot triumph. He is tired, and every day is harder than the day before, and there are rivals in the wings, and elections coming.
Read the whole thing.
I did not watch the SOTU speech. Looking at the reviews made me glad I didn’t. Trump set a new record for longest speech ever.
Based on what I’ve read, the whole thing was scripted like a stage show, with ‘reveals’ intended to shock and provoke knee-jerk applause, while setting up Democrats as targets. The ones who stayed away had the right idea.
Trump’s cynical use of horrible murders to justify his actions on immigration was shameful. Democrats have a powerful reply to the charge they refuse to keep Americans safe.
They should have started chanting the names of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. If Trump is going to resort to waving a “bloody shirt”, he should not go unchallenged.
It says a lot about where we are, that Trump not making extreme threats against Iran was seen as hopeful. By now you’d think people would have realized that Trump routinely walks back threats, only to drop the hammer later. It’s a tactic he uses to keep everyone off balance.
Paul Krugman has short but pointed review of the performance. Here’s how it starts.
Well, that was exhausting — or would have been, if I had watched it. But I am not a masochist. I waited to read the transcript.
Trump’s State of the Union was historic in at least one respect: It was the longest SOTU ever. Was the plan to turn public opinion around by boring America into submission?
The address may also have been historic in another way, although it would be hard to quantify. Did any previous SOTU contain so many lies?
For the most part they weren’t Big Lies, lies that are persuasive because people can’t believe that anyone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”. They were, instead, small lies that added up to a false — and completely unpersuasive — portrayal of where we are.
For those of you with the stomach for it, Krugman has a link to a transcript of the SOTU.
In the words of the late Kevin Drum, “GOPus delendus est.”
