State of the Onion

Last night President Trump gave the State of the Union speech.  Take home:  All is hunky-dory and I made it that way.  Unemployment is down; stock market up.  Bad trade deals scrapped;  good one started.  Consumer confidence up;  morning in America. Appointed conservative judges;  more to come.  No mention of impeachment.  Republicans didn’t have to go to the gym that day because they got their exercise jumping up and down at the end of each of his sentences.  And look who I brought with me here tonight:  Dying Rush Limbaugh to whom I give the Presidential Medal of Freedom attached by Melania;  a two year old saved by Kansas City doctors who was a preeme to underscore my reverence for life;  a hundred year old Tuskegee Airman and his great grandson who wants to join the Space Force;  the brother of a man murdered by an illegal who had been sheltered by a sanctuary state—California; a military Mom whose husband is serving in Iraq—Oh, wait, here he comes home!;  and more.  The speech was not so much the State of the Union as it was a kickoff for his 2020 reelection campaign—God, guns and gusto.  Oh, and the motto of America First.

But if you peal back the Onion, here is what you find.  Socialism is bad—but I’ll protect Social Security and Medicare.  Let’s get infrastructure done—but a bill passed by the House is languishing on McConnell’s desk.  We can’t police the world—but we have spent trillions on military arms that are the best in the world so don’t mess with us.  Speaking of trillions—no mention of the trillion-dollar national debt for which we will spend one in every four dollars in interest to China that was aggravated by tax cuts for the wealthy, for which he wants to do more.  I promise to protect pre-existing conditions—but why are you in court trying to repeal the ACA?  We have an abundance of oil and gas—no mention of the impact on global warming, or the desecration of our wilderness.  No mention of unity.  No mention of coming together.  Get on board, my way or the highway.

Today the Senate will acquit him of the impeachment charges.  Trump will be unchained and do whatever he wants, which is what he thought all along.  The branches of government are no longer co-equal.  We have sold our souls, and our republic to a reality show host.

Pealing back onions is a smelly business.  With each layer reality hits you in the face, or more specifically the nose.  It’s enough to make you cry.