I think he did address her as Madame Speaker. The flub was that it’s customary for the Speaker to gavel in/introduce the President, and he didn’t wait for that and jumped into his speech.
Ahh. Of course he might have known that if he gave half of a rat’s ass for protocol or tradition, or if he had watched a SOTU speech at some point during the last 50 years.
I just hope that the fact that the Dems are going to have eleventy-billion candidates (Klobuchar apparently all but officially included as of tonight) doesn’t make it easier for this buffoon to win a second term. God help us all if that happens.
Stacey Abrams knocked it out of the park
Not at all worried about it at the moment. The Democrats are fielding some really strong candidates. I mean, think about it like this: three months ago, Beto looked like an absolute phenom in politics, going up against Ted Cruz. But…now Beto looks very much like a guy who might be out of his element going up against folks like Harris, Warren, Sanders, and Biden, et al.
It’s a strong field. It’ll be a slug-it-out primary. The nominee that emerges should be pretty strong for having survived that fight. And I’d expect the party to fall into lockstep behind that person once it’s time to do so.
Slug-it-out primary didn’t go that great last time.
The Democrats are great at making the good the enemy of the perfect.
“I’m squishing your head, I’m squishing your head…”
2008 was much closer. Worked out fine.
I love how he basically claimed that we’d be at war with North Korea if he hadn’t become President. Because obviously he has much better foreign policy chops than the former Secretary of State, despite being an incurious moron.
He almost started a war with NK out of whole cloth, then granted NK’s wildest dreams to actually avoid a potential war. That’s next level incompetence.
I could only watch half of the SOTU before I had to go. I’m pissed at any Dem that stood up and legitimized Trump’s nationalist approach to being head honcho by rah-rahing “USA, USA!” along with Trump’s goons. Despite their words, that wasn’t a cheer for America, it was a show of support for Trump and his many “big wins” for our country as he “turns things around” and “starts at home” with his “economical solutions.”
What a fucking embarrassment for every person in that chamber in the country.
Having that particular audience turn into sychophants makes my blood boil. This isn’t a fucking Trump rally, fucksticks.
The Dems have to join the USA chant guys
I recall reading about the State of the Union. There is actually a lot of politics maneuvering involved in when they show support and when they don’t. It’s not just spur of the moment, and not just “I hate this guy, so I won’t.”
One of the mandatory things is joining in for anything that is an appeal to the country as a whole, as opposed to something specifically political or partisan.
They intentionally put the America is Great generalized stuff in the speech because they know those lines mandate support and applause from the other side. Because the other side cannot be seen to be non-patriotic. Politicians don’t do well when some idiot chants “USA” and the camera on the politician shows them looking stern and angry. It is a cheap, intentional ploy that binds their hands. Every president uses it, regardless of their party. (Not specifically the USA thing, but the generalized calls to how awesome we are.)
I’m sure every action taken had a purpose and intent behind it, I’m just a failure and politics and diplomacy.
No, they have to clap and look patriotic. They do not have to chant, like they’re at a Trump rally. It makes a difference, if you’re an international observer. The difference between “I’m proud of my country” and “I support this dick up in front who doesn’t care about the rest of the world.”
“USA!” chants make me cringe at the damn Olympics, let alone in fucking Congress. So juvenile and jingoistic. If you love your country, show respect or even reverence, not chant like you’re at a football game or a Hitler rally.
On the other hand you feed ammunition to the GOP’s base on how the democrats are unpatriotic and unamerican (which is an attack that has stupidly used a lot in the last decade for dumb things like this) so it’s a lose-lose situation and seems the better news is to not give them that easy ammunition. You can’t criticize the democrats for chanting like idiots if republicans were doing it too, but if only republicans were chanting you can twist things around to be anti-democrat.
I think it’s dumb too but welcome to America.
Sure I can. Like everything else, Democrats are better than that. Just because the GOP base is cool with people like Kavanaugh and Roy Moore doesn’t mean I can’t criticize a Democrat who does similar things. If Democrats started rallying around a pedophile, you can be sure I’ll be here condemning them for supporting such a piece of shit. Whether or not the GOP base does it is irrelevant, they’re labeled Deplorables for a reason.
Yep, people are spot on about this. Fox News is already jumping on attacks for people who didn’t applaud at appropriately patriotic times. It was a very much a gotcha-trap game staged for the media by the president.
Here’s a sample that was the top thing I saw when glancing at google news this morning:
Fox News is always going to Fox News. Nothing you can do or say will stop them from being Fox News, or the GOP base from being despicable shitstains.