Leading up to President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, a speech intended to celebrate 250 years — a quarter-millennium — of American success, there hadn’t been this much caterwauling about an elected president by Democrats since Richard Nixon.
Or maybe Abraham Lincoln.
Some six dozen Democrat lawmakers — including the AWFL Katharine Clark, the Democrats’ House Minority Whip — boycotted the State of the Union speech, evincing a level of disrespect for the president that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, and most of them were performative about the boycott. For example, here’s the thoroughly obnoxious Jim McGovern, congressman from Massachusetts… (RELATED: Who Cares If Democrats Boycott Trump’s SOTU?)
I’ve gone to every State of the Union since I was elected to Congress—including during Trump’s first term. I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than listen to his manifesto of mistruths. pic.twitter.com/HMsAWwONBx
— Rep. Jim McGovern (@RepMcGovern) February 24, 2026
Or the execrable Tammy Duckworth…
I won’t be attending the State of the Union address.
I’m not interested in hearing another campaign rally full of lies.
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) February 24, 2026
The performative boycotting was always fraught with political risk.
For example, the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team, fresh off a gold medal courtesy of an overtime win over Canada, no less, was getting its first national celebratory reception at the State of the Union address. This was the first Olympic gold medal for U.S. men’s hockey since the Miracle on Ice team accomplished that feat in 1980, some 46 years ago, and it’s a patriotic duty to celebrate the victory. (RELATED: From Overtime Glory to Oval Divide: When Team USA Splits at the State of the Union)
So the McGoverns and Duckworths were boycotting that when they knew the collateral damage.
And when Trump entered the House chamber for the speech, the horrific Al Green held up a sign telling Trump that “Black people aren’t apes,” a reference to a funny AI video a week or two earlier, which had surfaced depicting the political class as animals on the African Serengeti, with Barack and Michelle Obama as a gorilla and an orangutan. Someone on Trump’s team had reposted it on social media by mistake, but the Left insisted on turning it into a capital case.
Green left the building almost immediately after the speech began, verbally sparring with Republican House members on his way out in a gruesome, if wholly unsurprising, display of low class.
And it turned out that Trump’s speech was a celebration not just of the Olympic hockey champions, but of Americans of every color and creed who are doing extraordinary things. This has become a standard State of the Union theme, because it’s good politics for the president and also because it’s what a country desperately needs when it’s so riven by political disagreement that simple civic functions like letting law enforcement arrest child molesters, cartel thugs, and human traffickers draw actual violent protesters out of yoga studios and PTA meetings.
We have to be able to celebrate each other. We must relearn that politics is not religion, and that it does not solve the problems of the human soul.
Jim McGovern and Tammy Duckworth aren’t the only people who need that remedial lesson. One might argue they already know it but couldn’t care less because it’s the red meat their ravenous base so dearly wants.
And, particularly on the Left, among people who turn up their nose at actual red meat, that’s the only political diet they find palatable.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. All that does is Donald Trump is a poopyhead, and so are the American people for making him president.
Trump said it a long time ago — it isn’t him they hate. It’s you. He’s just standing in the way.
Trump said it a long time ago — it isn’t him they hate. It’s you. He’s just standing in the way. That was never more true than Tuesday night.
The unprecedented level of flat-out vitriol spewed out by the entire left side of the American political equation suggests only one thing: they want a civil war, and they will fan the flames of political hatred until they get one.
Over the weekend, an impressionable young man with no discernible record of political activism or animus invaded Trump’s Mar-A-Lago complex with a shotgun and a gas can, and was shot dead by the Secret Service when he menaced those confronting him. The First Family was not there, indicating the lack of an organized plot to assassinate the president, but that isn’t the problem; what’s clear is the Left is working by volume, ginning up as much anger and vitriol as possible in an attempt to plunge the nation into chaos before the 2026 midterm elections. (RELATED: Success Is the New Hate Crime: Conservatives Advised to Stay Small, Stay Quiet, and Maybe Stay Alive)
But is it working? Is America in the toilet under Trump’s leadership?
If you listen to the media polling, you might think so.
On the other hand, a week or so ago, Gallup, the gold standard in polling organizations, admitted they are getting a minuscule five percent response rate on their telephone polling. That’s Gallup — some outfit people have never heard of, probably can’t even get that many responses.
Or, you could listen to the president himself as he discussed the successes of the country since his inauguration last year.
“Our nation is back,” Trump said. “Bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before.”
Trump declared a Golden Age.
To illustrate this, he noted a drastic drop in overdose deaths, the murder rate, inflation, gas prices, and mortgage rates, a stock market at record highs, and an $18 trillion influx of foreign investment into the United States economy in one year. (RELATED: The Productivity Boom Economists Didn’t See Coming)
“A short time ago, we were a dead country,” Trump said. “Now, we’re the hottest country in the world.”
Trump noted that American natural gas production is at an all-time high. Employment is at an all-time high, with 100 percent of the jobs created in Trump’s term being in the private sector.
He boasted of an end to DEI and removing 2.4 million Americans off food stamps.
And then he introduced the hockey team after a funny riff about how much America is winning, to a tumultuous reception from the hall. Trump joked that it was the first applause the Democrats had given all night, and not all of them were applauding. Trump announced that the team’s goalie, Connor Hellebuyck, was due to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his legendary performance in Italy.
Then came the unsung heroes.
Buddy Taggart, who at 17 fought with MacArthur in the Philippines as the Japanese invaders surged in, and then returned later to liberate the internment camps when the tide turned.
Scott Ruskan, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer hailed as an American hero for saving 165 people during catastrophic flooding in central Texas on July 5, 2025.
Michael and Susan Dell, who donated $6.25 billion to give American children a pre-funded savings account, and Brad Gershner, who helped establish the program.
Trump brought up last year’s Big Beautiful Bill and its tax cuts, and he touted the tariffs and the preservation of the trade deals despite the “unfortunate” recent Supreme Court ruling against them. He outlined a wish that tariff revenue would one day replace the income tax as the government’s primary means of revenue. (RELATED: The Court Strikes, But the Tariffs March On)
Then he trashed the Democrats for using the word “affordability” as an attack on his presidency. “You caused that problem,” he said, calling their accusations a “dirty rotten lie.”
And unloaded on the Democrats’ Obamacare monstrosity in the healthcare industry, touting his own plan introduced late last year and his Most Favored Nation arrangements on prescription drugs. He also touted a new Ratepayer Protection Pledge, in which tech companies building data centers will contribute to building power plants to service those facilities and thus make no negative impact on electricity rates in the areas where those centers are built. (RELATED: How Great Is the Great Healthcare Plan?)
He touted his plan to block institutional capital firms from intruding on the single-family housing market, and he suggested that members of Congress not be allowed to engage in insider trading in stocks.
Trump announced a War on Fraud — noting the billions of dollars in welfare fraud going on in Minnesota and elsewhere — to be headed up by Vice President JD Vance, and pointed out the endemic quality of the Somali community’s participation in some $19 billion and counting in piracy against the American taxpayer. (RELATED: Some Obvious Truths From Minnesota)
He proposed a bill barring illegal aliens from getting a commercial driver’s license, which cannot possibly be a controversial topic. He brought up Angel families, whose children have been killed by illegal alien criminals.
Trump noted the partial shutdown the Democrats have caused by failing to fund the Department of Homeland Security, and suggested the previous Democrat shutdown shaved two points off GDP growth in the fourth quarter.
The Democrats in the room glared menacingly at the president throughout, and at one point during a protracted standing ovation by Republicans only, Trump glared back. He then demanded action against “sanctuary cities,” at which point Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib erupted in screams at the president.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump said, and then he demanded the passage of the SAVE America Act, which would require voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote, a measure that more than four in five Americans favor.
“They want to cheat, they have cheated, and the only way they can get elected is to cheat,” Trump said of why Democrats are filibustering the SAVE America Act. (RELATED: The SAVE Act: Why Are Senate Republicans Dithering?)
Trump addressed transgenderism, suggesting a ban on pediatric sex-changes. And when the Democrats refused to support that, Trump pointed at them and said, “These people are crazy.” He said they’d have destroyed the country, but “we stopped it at the nick of time.”
Trump noted the quietly burgeoning religious revival in the country, particularly among the young, and took that opportunity to honor Charlie Kirk, “martyred for his beliefs.” He recognized Kirk’s wife, Erika, and noted that America is one nation under God and must reject political violence.
He brought up the horrific death of Iryna Zarutska, murdered on a public railcar by a deranged lunatic in Charlotte, and the Democrats wouldn’t stand to honor Iryna’s mother.
“How do you not stand?” Trump asked them.
He touted the success of the National Guard deployments in draining the crime rate in Memphis, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. The Democrats wouldn’t applaud that either. Then he mentioned Sarah Beckstrom, of the West Virginia National Guard, assassinated by an Afghan terrorist, and honored Beckstrom’s parents.
Some of the Democrats did stand up for that. Then Trump told the story of Andrew Wolfe, Beckstrom’s fellow National Guardsman, who was shot in the head in that same attack but miraculously survived. Trump announced Wolfe and Beckstrom would both receive the Purple Heart for their service.
Trump touted the success in stopping eight different wars in his first year in office, thanking his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for their efforts. And he talked about trying to end the “ninth war,” that between Russia and Ukraine, and taking out key parts of the Iranian nuclear program last year.
Trump mentioned the 32,000 Iranian protesters slaughtered by that regime. He accused the Iranian regime of reneging on the deal cut with them last year, saying his preference is to resolve the issue with diplomacy, but swore never to allow the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon.
Trump touted the five percent GDP target on defense spending agreed to by NATO countries.
And he discussed the designation of foreign criminal cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, referencing the takedown of “El Mencho,” the head of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, over the weekend, and the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.
Most of the Democrats wouldn’t applaud Maduro’s takedown.
Trump told the story of Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, who fought off multiple bullet wounds from machine guns to land a Chinook helicopter during the Maduro raid and discharge the troops inside to complete the mission. Trump announced the presentation of Slover with the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service.
And finally, Trump honored 100-year-old Royce Williams, a World War II and Korean War veteran fighter pilot who also received the Congressional Medal of Honor, presented by the First Lady in a touching and happy moment.
Finally, the Democrats were standing and applauding.
And for a moment, if only for a moment, America was one nation again.
Though we all know it won’t last, as dispiriting as that is.
Whether America can continue to succeed despite the division is a matter to be decided over the next few months.
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