Honest wrote a blog about why one shouldn't watch the State of the Union, and we had three reasons:
- white nationalist fear-mongering: check
- Talk about abortion: check
- Call for bipartisanship even though that's complete bullshit: check
I'm not going to discuss abortion in this blog because Honest Nonsense did another blog today about the right lying about abortion, and actually being anti-woman more than pro-life.
During his SOTU speech, Trump argued for a border wall because in El Paso, Texas, is why the city is among the safest in the country.
Trump: “The border city of El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime — one of the highest in the country, and [was] considered one of our nation’s most dangerous cities. Now, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of our safest cities."
"This is a straight up lie about El Paso," tweeted Washington correspondent Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star, "which was one of America's safest large cities for violent crime before the fencing was erected and did not immediately see crime fall after the fence was built."
Daniel Dale cited FactCheck who wrote:
El Paso has never been “one of the most dangerous cities in the country.” The city had the third lowest violent crime rate among 35 U.S. cities with a population over 500,000 in 2005, 2006 and 2007 – before construction of a 57-mile-long fence started in mid-2008.
There was no “overnight” drop in violent crimes in El Paso after “a wall was put up.” In fact, the city’s violent crime rate increased 5.5 percent from 2007 to 2010 — the years before and after construction of the fence, which was completed in mid-2009.
That's right, crime actually went up after the fence was built.
Vox's Alexia Campbell, and El Paso native, tweeted that the city has never been a violent:
During the speech, Donald Trump's only real call for bipartisanship cam in the form of having the audacity to declare that Americans need to "reject the politics of revenge," which Mother Jones has pointed out how this is completely absurd.
Others were shocked to hear Trump actually say that:
But that was the end of Donald Trump's call bipartisanship action. For Donald Trump, bipartisanship means that Democrats should stop investigating his corruption.
Trump via Vox:
“An economic miracle is taking place in the United States — and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations,” Trump said.
He continued: “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn’t work that way!”
Crooked's editor in chief Brian Beutler tweeted:
Late night television host Stephen Colbert mocked Trump saying, "“You can’t have legislation and investigation. Whoever heard of law and order? Come on. You have to choose.”
During the speech, Trump said:
No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards. Meanwhile, working-class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal migration — reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools and hospitals, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net.
"The unitary message, again and again," writes Vox's Zack Beauchamp, "is that Trump is here for the little guy, the victim of Washington's business as usual."
But as Beauchamp points out, this is total horse shit:
This is not, in fact, true. Trump’s tax cut helped the wealthy, not the working class, and his attempt to weaken Obamacare is taking away health care from Americans who couldn’t otherwise afford it. There’s no evidence his trade policies are helping the working class. His policies on immigration have terrorized an untold number of working-class migrant families, who live in fear of an ICE raid targeting their loved ones. If Trump’s goal is to help the little guy at the elite’s expense, he’s doing a terrible job of it.
"But like all myths, the central one in Trump’s State of the Union does contain a real message," continues Beauchamp.
Beauchamp also points out that Trump is not a populist but something else:
The tension between Trump’s State of the Union message and his actual record reveals the core of his administration’s thinking: Not populism, but ethno-nationalism. An ideal of a country whose politics center the interests of one ethnic group, the white majority.
I'm glad I didn't watch the SUTO, because it was the shit show that I figured it was going to be: a white nationalist agenda and appeals to the fascist Christian right.
But Trump that in order to have bipartisanship means he must be allowed to get away with corruption because he's the most important America was pretty fucking great if you enjoy living hell....
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