Fallows on SOTU

I promised to include former White House speech writer James Fallows' reaction to Tuesday night's Klan rally State of the Union address. Suffice it to say, Fallows was not pleased:

I didn’t write about Donald Trump’s performance at the Capitol on Tuesday night, because I couldn’t stand to watch the whole thing. I turned it off when it still had 45 minutes to go. For context: All presidents from Richard Nixon through the first George Bush kept their SOTU addresses near or below 45 minutes, total. One of Nixon’s lasted only 28 minutes. One of Reagan’s, just 31. Two of Carter’s, just 32 each.

And I didn’t write about it yesterday, after going back to watch those last, lost 45 minutes, because after doing so I thought: This is too horrible to deal with.

This speech was racist, full of lies, narcissistic, divisive, and so on. The examples and details have been reported everywhere. By now, all of that is baked in.

The difference this time is that the speech was boring.

Everything’s a prop. And everyone is a player in the Trump show.

Donald Trump called out two brave veterans—one still young, one 100 years old—for their in-uniform sacrifice. (That of the young one involved multiple references to “gushing blood” and “blood running down the aisles” of his military helicopter.) In a step never before seen at a SOTU, he awarded them the highest military recognition, the [Congressional] Medal of Honor, on camera as part of his show.

No lies there. I'm glad Fallows was finally able to stomach the whole thing.