Folks, I come to you here tonight an exhausted Trump watcher and columnist. In the past year, we’ve borne witness to literally innumerable scandals and examples of bad faith, by both Trump himself and by those around him.
The current one, other than the fact that the Democrat’s Dreamer guests might be literally arrested for showing up, is an ongoing assault on the political independence of the FBI and Department of Justice for daring to suggest that Trump might have committed the crimes he more or less committed in plain sight in order to cover up the crimes not in plain sight. Oh, and he decided not to implement sanctions on Russia he was forced to sign into law by a veto proof majority. Oh, and FEMA is leaving Puerto Rico with 1 million U.S citizens still lacking electricity, after the GOP tax bill removed a tax break critical to its economy.
*yells into the bottom of a nondescript glass of mint water*
But sure, let’s do this. Let’s watch an old, confused racist get praise for doing the bare minimum for an entire speech.
A lot of mint water later, having had to play the Pizza Theme from Spiderman 2: The Video Game in the backdrop to survive, about as stone-faced as the Democratic members of Congress, he didn’t seem to come to life until he was talking about immigration and terrorism. Nothing was really new. Toot about the tax plan, populism we know will be proven false, a call for unity we know will be rescinded within about a week’s time, immigration, chain immigration (renaming “family reunification” into something that invokes links of cold metal instead of human beings), bragging about the Jerusalem deal and spouting general platitudes between the barbs as Mike Pence and Paul Ryan make goo-goo eyes at his back.
It’s more or less what I expected. He gave a coherent speech, packed with all the stuff he’d normally say in a more tightly produced package than normal. He did not announce Mueller’s firing, the formation of the Galactic Empire, resign, spout racial epithets or announce the beginning of nuclear war against North Korea (that, he most likely will save for Twitter).
He did include a couple dumb nuggets I can’t help but call out:
“Clean coal”
The idea of the “War on Coal” is dumb, and is only brought up because coal has an image of hardscrabble Americana. The decline of coal jobs, like most other industrial jobs, is due to automation, not immigration and regulation. Coal specifically has natural gas and renewable energy driving it out.
“Stand for The Flag”
Oh, right. He did manage to include his beef with the NFL players who knelt to protest him and police violence against African Americans. Y’know, months after he granted moral equivalency to people who were splicing swastikas into the flag before one of their number hit the counter-protesters with a car. “But hey, their employment is up, so I’m not racist!” he says.
My judgement still stands. Nothing will change, Donald Trump will continue sucking the life out of our institutions, and he’ll get regarded as the second coming of Christ by the GOP for a week, because the bar is now just that low.
Logan Graham is a senior studying media arts with a focus in games and animation at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. What are your thoughts onTrump? Let Logan know by emailing him at lg261813@ohio.edu.
