Trump Speech to Joint Session of Congress: Mission Accomplished
Potentially defanging the “resistance” and expanding his base.
I’ll leave the details and the policy prescriptions to others. Here’s my quick reaction.
Donald Trump’s speech to a Joint Session of Congress tonight was enormously impressive and potentially game changing.
In big terms, he was both presidential and pugnacious. He started by talking about more work to be done on civil rights, and condemned recent acts of anti-Semitism and hate. While it will not satisfy those who hate him, it set a tone and deflated the attacks on the speech you know already had been written. Bringing victims of crime by illegal immigrants and introducing them was powerful. And introducing the widow of fallen Navy SEAL Ryan Owens was the most emotional moment I’ve ever seen in such a speech.
There were many other points made, some of which would appeal to Democrats, but overall he stuck to what he promised during the campaign.
The word that keeps coming back to me is “defanged.”
Given the size of the audience, Trump defanged the deranged, irrational concept of “resistence.” That’s not to say Democrats won’t keep obstructing, but after this speech they do so at great risk.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Out.Of.The.Park.
Worked for me
Possibly the biggest mistake the Democrats have ever made was sitting on their hands when Trump talked about not representing the world but representing the people of the United States.
Nancy Pelosi bragged that the Democrats have succeeded in getting under Trump’s skin. Dream on Nancy, you have it exactly backwards.
Proof that Democrats still don’t get it.
They still have no clue why they lost, and continue in the same path.
It’s annoying, but that’s a little price to pay: the more they entrench in their stupidity, the higher the chances of winning more Republican seats in 2018. And after that 2020.
“Possibly the biggest mistake the Democrats have ever made was sitting on their hands when Trump talked about not representing the world but representing the people of the United States.”
2020 campaign commercial. Count on it.
Just what I was thinking. But why wait until 2020? Those were Senators and Reps sitting on their hands. 2018 will work as well.
And what was with all the Democrat women wearing white? It looked like Ladies Night at the Ku Klux Klan Hall.
You clearly remember how Melania was savaged for wearing a ‘racist’ white dress.
I was not going to watch because I did not want to see the hateful democrats and media do their best to savage and destroy this President.
A friend convinced me that I had to watch. My friend got me to watch the best State of the Union (NPR says it really wasn’t) speech of my lifetime.
Thank you President Trump.
Firstly..
The Recently Widowed Mrs. Ryan Owens…absolutely broke my heart. No dry eyes here…
The rest, Trump speaks in plain English.
I believe he can put the entire country to work and paying taxes, with a job for everyone who is willing to work.
The Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for staying seated. But you can’t fix stupid, some of those propositions were right out of their play-book. But, they are entrenched.
Or, maybe some enterprising individual put a puddle of super-glue on all their seats. Actually, I did see a few rise up in applause, here and there.
I found the entire speech up-beat, optimistic, and I do believe we can pull it off…
But not without battle. Trump cannot even trust the Republicans.
Thus, again, he spoke not to Congress, but laid his case, yet again, directly to the American People.
Are those D’s who stood and applauded up for re-election?
For anyone who has lost someone without warning – a child, a parent, a friend – surely had tears in their eyes this evening. The look to the heavens was too much and I am still tearing up.
It was a good speech and I hope that someone gets the names of all of those Ds that did not stand. I would like to contribute to the campaign of their Republican replacements.
Not having been able to watch, I imagine it would be easier to name those who DID stand. Manchin, possibly, for one.
Oh, off topic..and this probably isn’t the venue…
But Happy Birthday ( In three more years ) to all you Leap Year Babies!
I have one in my Family..
One of the things Trump does in his speeches, over and over again, which I think is very subtle, very smart, and must take lots of practice:
at the end of each and every clause or tidbit, he tells you that you, or the country, are going to benefit.
Paraphrasing: “We’re going to re-negotiate NAFTA, and we’re going to have more jobs, and you’ll have a job.”
“We’ll repeal and replace Obamacare, and we’ll have something better, and your health care costs are going to go down.”
And so on. Always wth the tag at the end. He’s setting the hook into ordinary Americans, and they get it. They see it. They understand that Trump is doing what he’s doing FOR THEM.
It’s powerful, and when he gets on a roll it’s very powerful indeed.
There are parts of his speaking dynamics that I don’t like, but the man knows how to sell, and he knows how to give a speech.
So…much…better…than…Obama!
^^^^^^^^^^ 1000
McGovern was 1000 percent BEHIND Eagleton. Trump is 1000 FOR the American people. Thanks for reminding me of the “1000”.
Biggest change from the Obama years – it was pleasantly amazing not to hear the word “I” repeated 300 times during this speech!
So, I just went to CNN…yes, I know, but hear me out. I only do this occasionally because my dear wife has a habit of checking out the site (because her family always got their news from CNN).
Anyhow, I couldn’t help but notice that not ONE of the five or so articles I clicked on had ANY comments section. Is this normal for CNN or a new development to spare their wittle feewings over the fake news cries?
I think it’s particularly disingenuous to leave off comments on fact-checking articles since news outlets have a habit of deliberately misconstruing and re-framing opinions as facts and then “debunking” them.
Just checked CNN’s website and they had people commenting on the speech. It was virtually all negative. I don’t think Trump can do anything that will change that. I’m sure the Times and Washington Post will be the same. The media hates Republicans, but Trump brings it to another level of hate.
I never go to CNN so I don’t know if deleting the comments section is new for them. That said, I have noticed that CNBC eliminated their comments section sometime after the election. They were getting so much blowback to their left leaning articles that it must have been embarrassing for them. I mean, how can you defend anything John Harwood says?
Did the Democrats come up with an official DNC response yet?
Yes…it was the Russians!
They’re too busy telling Kellanne Conway how to sit on a couch.
Did the Democrats stay seated when Mrs. Ryan Owens was crying her eyes out?
I couldn’t see.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Keith Ellison not only stayed seated during that long ovation, they didn’t even clap. Typical despicableness from both of them.
Sorry, can’t comment until Rags has delivered his, obviously, correct opinion 🙂
I hear he’s changing his nick to “IvealwayslovedTrump”.
either that or Bill KristolNacht.
The LibDems have forgotten the First Law of Holes: when you find yourself in one – stop digging.
For entertainment I recommend visiting DemocraticUnderground.com and look at the “I f****ing hate him” thread. It shows the real truth of Progressive Fascists. You can see how much in common they have with Nazis, KKK and Communists.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028726059
GRAND SLAM President Trump! A speech for the ages.
The democratic response looked old, feeble and out of touch.
Right now the democratic party is tearing it’s self apart.
They introduced him as ‘The President of the United States of America’. He certainly left that way.
The look on Nancy’s frozen face was priceless.