Trump Lies, His Seals Clap

His American dream is a nightmare

Inflation is up. The stock market is in free fall. Allies are turning their backs. In a recent CNN poll, the majority said the country is moving in the wrong direction. But there stood Donald Trump, declaring to the House and Senate, that our country is in great shape and we should expect more of the same. It was, in sum, a ridiculous, tone-deaf spectacle.

Though it was not an official State of the Union address, Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress was framed as if it was. The longest presidential address ever given to Congress, it was an exhausting display of the man’s ego. Orwellian in the extreme, Trump all but insisted black is white and up is down. Indeed, he uttered so many mind-numbing lies and distortions and lies that it’s hard to know where to begin to debunk them. So first let’s look at the reception he received.

While the Democrats in the House chamber pulled a few protest stunts, the more than 200 Republicans performed like trained seals, bobbing up and down and clapping and barking as if they were getting rewarded with fish. Most have joined the Trump cult, but the remaining moderates cheered because they are afraid that the president will use his power to somehow shove them out of Congress in the next election.

About those lies. Here are a few.

· Trump claimed an election mandate “like has not been seen in many decades.”

This claim is ridiculous. In the last 30 years alone, Trump has been bested by Bill Clinton (twice), George W. Bush, and Barack Obama (also twice).

· He said $8 million in federal funds have been spent “making mice transgender.” In fact, the $477,000 grant was for hormone experiments using monkeys as test subjects.

· Trump suggested, in many ways, that crime is rampant. In fact, it is going down

· He claimed to have deported more illegal immigrants than any president. Barack Obama deported more.

He said Joe Biden forced the closure of 100 power plants. He didn’t say that under Biden, the number of plants in the US jumped from about 11,000 to more than 13,200.

I could go on, and on, but you get the point. Trump lied. And with each lie the GOP representatives rose to applaud and cheer. They even offered their approval as Trump gave a shout-out to the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. Seated in the gallery, above it all, Musk smiled as Trump repeated false claims about the money saved by his effort to slash the federal workforce and government spending. Although the seals barked and clapped, the few moderate left in the GOP had to cringe. Musk, you see, is highly unpopular, as is his project. They don’t want to be tied to him.

And so it went. A rally speech disguised as a presidential address with the Republicans offering their noisy approval. As I watched, I saw evidence of a power-mad president quickly claiming a dictator’s status, as a docile, ignorant Congressional majority welcomed this horrendous development. Economy-crushing tariffs on trading partners? Yes, more please. Abandoning Ukraine in its war of survival against Russia. Yes. Yes.

Trump’s chosen theme — “the renewal of the American dream” — showed he is detached from reality. Look across the landscape and you can see that families are struggling with everything from the cost of housing to the price of food. You see that Trump’s tariff war will hit farm communities hard. The same is true for manufacturing centers where trade with China, Mexico and Canada is a matter of survival. Prices, anxiety, and unemployment are all up. And we’re getting more of the same?

American dream? More like a nightmare.

Do you think this is important for more people to see? Then please share: