OPINION: This is why The State of The Union Mattered

Friday, February 1, 2019 | Jay Doherty

 TJDP 70 heavily covers related topics.

Last Updated: 07:16 CST on Friday, February 8, 2019

Donald Trump delivered The State of The Union last night in the House Chamber as he stood in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Michael Pence.

As I spoke about in episode  Episode 70 of The Jay Doherty Podcast, the following are just some of the prominent topics were discussed heavily in The SOTU:

  • Minority support
  • Bipartisan Unity
  • The Mueller Investigation
  • Capitalism

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Minority Support

Minority Support was very evident in The State Of The Union, and in my unsolicited opinion sounded better, or at least more powerful coming from a republican. Among many things, Trump spoke of the growing amount of women not only in the workforce but also in congress.

Specifically, he said “All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before — and exactly one century after the Congress passed the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before.”

Image Source: Glamour

Many of the women, who were dressed in white in protest of Trump stayed mute throughout the whole speech. This is nothing new although when trump mentioned the record-high statistics for job growth and congressional leadership for women, they clapped and danced in joy.

Bipartisan Unity

Trump opened up his speech by calling for bipartisanship. He did so by “hoping that we will govern not as two parties but as one nation.” Expectedly, Democrats and Republicans gave Trump a large cheer after this statement.

This statement was great but after it ended Trump went on to say the same things just with different wording. For example, Trump said “the agenda I will lay out tonight is not a republican agenda or a democrat agenda. It is the agenda of the American people.”

His third statement of bipartisanship happened just under three minutes into the speech. He said “there is a new opportunity in American politics if only we have the courage together to seize it.”

Finally, Trump said “victory is not winning for our party. Victory is winning for our country”. Cheers from both sides came as that proud statement was made.

Overall, Trump needs to take action on his words. He will say all of this in an eloquent manner but the next day, you will see him tweeting about something… say presidential harassment?

The Mueller Investigation

Donald Trump took a direct jab at democrats by mentioning The Mueller Investigation. Particularly, Trump hit House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff by saying:

If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn’t work that way!

Donald J. Trump, SOTU 2019

Nixon! Nixon! Nixon! Not much more needs to be said, but that line reminded me of the re-runs I watched of Richard Nixon responding to the supposed allegations as the “watergate” scandal arose.

For context, Nixon said “I would like to add a personal word with regard to an issue that has been of great concern to all Americans over the past year. I refer, of course, to the investigations of the so-called Watergate affair,”

Nixon said “as you know, I have provided to the special prosecutor voluntarily a great deal of material. I believe that I have provided all the material that he needs to conclude his investigations and to proceed to prosecute the guilty and to clear the innocent.”

“I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end” Nixon said.

Nixon was forced to resign six months later.

Donald Trump basically said the same thing, just simplified it into 116 characters.

Capitalism

Or… an attack on socialism. Trump went on a pre-written rant about socialism, which I think was well deserved and well written. I say that only because I like capitalism; not republicanism.

Here is the statement: “Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.”

The camera cut right to Bernie Sanders as Trump made these remarks. 

The Conclusion

In conclusion, the topics discussed on this years State of The Union were important, and like I said on TJDP, “if you based his entire presidency off of that one speech, you’d vote for him easily”. That is a problem; especially because this was one of the only times where Trump strictly stuck to the prompter the whole speech.

 TJDP 70 heavily covers related topics.


Jay Doherty

2019

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