State of the Union, Trump Style

If ever a comparison was needed between the presidential and parliamentary systems of government, I saw it this week. On Wednesday afternoon, I watched Prime Minister’s Questions from the House of Commons. Mrs May was in China so her place was taken by David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister. Protocol demanded that Mr Corbyn’s not appear and his substitute was taken by the redoubtable Emily Thornberry, the shadow Foreign Secretary. The House of Commons chamber was its usual rowdy, noisy and unruly self and the finest example of people behaving badly.

Speaker John Bercow tries humour to regain order but it might help if he ordered the removal of some of the elderly schoolboys from the Commons chamber for their boorishness! It would also help were he to admonish those answering questions to do that very thing. For decades, no Prime Minister has had his or her feet held to the fire by this mockery of the democratic process.

Earlier, I watched the State of the Union address, delivered to a vast Congressional audience of America’s great and good, half of whom applauded and stood up pretty well every minute. It gets to be fun when the House and the Senate are held by different parties. The Vice President and the House Speaker sit next to each other behind the President and as one stands smiling, the other sits, frowning.

This year, the Democratic politicians, military chiefs of staff and Supremes listened to the speech mostly in stony silence. Mind you, there were some ungentlemanly and unladylike muted Democratic hisses and boos when the President lauded the destruction of Obamacare and the “deal” on immigration.

Back to the speech. It cannot be denied that Mr Trump looked Presidential and spoke presidentially. However, he adopted a ploy first used by President Reagan, pointing to and speaking about people seated close to the First Lady. Trump told sob stories of their bravery and sacrifice. With respect, the stories have no place in a speech about current and future political policy. This is something that plays well to the American television audiences. We Brits dismiss it as unworthy of the ceremony.

Throughout the speech, faces on the Democratic benches were pictures of sourness. Nancy Pelosi looked like a shrivelled prune as she glared for more than an hour. Bernie Sanders sat grim faced as if he was auditioning for a place on Mount Rushmore. Chuck Shumer’s body language was a plea to leave the Chamber as soon as he could. On the Republican benches, men named by the President rose and smiled broadly as if the President himself had rubbed their tummies in praise.

The problem really arises when you examine the substance of the speech. Trump fell woefully short. He laid out no new policies for the coming year. Instead he spoke about immigration, energy and infrastructure, the same policies he advocated in his campaign, while virtually ignoring healthcare. He combined the First Amendment right to religious freedom and the Second Amendment, which relates to the right to bear arms. Do he and his speech writers not know the Bill of Rights? He wants to detain terrorists and enemies of America in Guantanamo Bay yet he spoke of America’s freedoms and respect for law.

Contradictions abounded. On immigration, he reached out to both parties, proposing citizenship for Dreamers and others if they pass a twelve year test. However, he made the deal conditional on the imposition of very strict, harsh and seemingly unfair immigration laws. How is that reaching out? He seeks laws that are anathema to Democrats and some Republicans. Where is there room for compromise?

On energy, Trump praised clean coal, which any mining engineer will tell you does not exist. On infrastructure, he wants $3 trillion spent, half by the federal government, the rest by the states, cities and private partnerships. Anyone who studies America’s history knows that projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Interstates were rife with corruption, yet Trump made no mention of avoidance of boondoggles. Mind you, he did not mention Fire and Fury writer, Michael Wolff. Trump missed an opportunity to demand the outlawing of Fake News.

A while ago, the United Nations general assembly delivered a stinging rebuke, voting by a huge majority to reject Trump’s unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, despite Trump's threat to cut US funding to countries that did not support US recognition. Trump repeated the threat in the speech, having first told the assembled throng that America was the most generous of nations on foreign aid. In fact, the per capita generosity table is headed by Sweden.

 As all the American news media, except Fox, has pointed out. The speech was littered with false claims - some of which I have listed – platitudes, and indifference to America’s laws. What finally made me gag was the ending. Trump said:

 “Americans dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again. As long as we are proud of who we are, and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve. As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God, we will not fail.”

Not even the much loved President Reagan could get away with this sentimental clap-trap until his second term. In Trump, the words were hollow. For me, the speech was written by Disney. I could add it was delivered by Dopey except Dopey was mercifully the silent dwarf.