(The State of) The State of the Union
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TRUMP BOBBLEHEAD, IMAGE: SEAN FERIGAN
Trumpian State of the Union addresses are always eventful. We didn’t quite match Nancy Pelosi tearing up his speech for the cameras to see this last time around, but Al Green’s ‘Black People Aren’t Apes’ sign was certainly a head-turner. The issue is that the State of the Union isn’t supposed to be an entertaining, reality TV-style, tribal political showcase, purposed almost solely to inflate its deliverer’s ego. Instead, it’s meant to be the president setting his stall before Congress and charting a course for the next year in American politics. To give the sitting president a fair crack of the whip, to attempt such a speech, you do need to know what course you’re attempting to chart in the first place.
I’m no George W. Bush fan (is anyone?), but his 2002 Union address was a rallying cry for unity amid turbulent uncertainty. Though his ‘axis of evil’ proclamation can now be labelled as a catalyst for myriad mistakes in US foreign policy, few can doubt that Bush’s rhetoric helped induce bipartisan accord. It was similar to how Reagan deployed his 1986 address, opting to delay the traditional Congressional conversation in favour of opening his heart to the nation following the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. Compared to these striking examples, it’s incredible how distinctly divisive Trump’s 2026 speech was. Without trying to sound too much like a historical romantic, it’s remarkable the (detrimental) impact a shift in behaviour norms has as a result of individual actors and a politics that feeds on sound bites and media fodder. The former changes what is acceptable, while the latter has encouraged this divergence through the lure of media coverage and social media prevalence; neither has helped American politics.
GEORGE W. BUSH, IMAGE: HISTORY IN HD
The turbulence of contemporary Union addresses is merely one of myriad symptoms of unrivalled American tribalism. The State of the Union was once a rare moment wherein presidents of either stripe could focus on what unites, and not what divides, US legislators (and the watching public, for that matter). More astute presidential operators could see this as a key communicative tool to announce directly to Congress and electors where their agenda is headed, in a manner beneficial for its eventual achievement. Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of war on poverty and Clinton’s call on time for big government spring to mind. But instead, we have a president determined to do nothing but gloat and rage-bait Democrats. While he has been the primary producer and beneficiary of mindless factionalism in the contemporary United States, it’s not all Trump’s fault, honestly. While Trumpian State addresses are pre-eminent examples, American politics was heading down this path before he bundled onto the scene.
During one of his Union addresses, Obama decided to (rather oddly) denounce the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v FEC decision in his 2010 Union address. While that decision is fairly lamentable, it’s rather peculiar for a president to sidestep the purpose of the Union address to take a swipe at the head judicial body, separation of powers and all. It's odd to paint Obama as a norm-breaker in a negative way, but such rhetorical manoeuvring only escalates decorum collapse. Then, more tellingly, in his 2009 Union address, Obama was heckled, with Rep. Joe Wilson proclaiming “you lie!” in a move subsequently condemned by the House GOP. Yet, as TIME’s Mini Racker notes, this was only the first raindrop of the flood as yelling at the president became the new norm in reference to Biden’s hostile 2023 address. The experienced political operator handled it well, but congressional decorum had evidently gone well out the proverbial window, as Wilson’s behaviour was a turning point: the last time the House parties decided to truly punish one of its own for ill-behaviour, before eventually embracing it.
US CONGRESS, IMAGE: HAROLD MENDOZA
In an American political epoch defined perhaps most prominently by institutional mistruth, the State of the Union address has become an annual display of the reasons why. A lack of respect for high office(s), toxic factionalism to such an extent that we need new coinage with which to explain it, and a general lack of connection to the intrinsically compelling values of the US. The Union address is, of course, not of primary concern. Its hypothetical loss would be of minor consequence given its current flaws, only harming those who enjoy popcorn and gladiatorial politics, but these flaws (and their development over time) are crystallised within these annual cross-governmental speeches. If American politics is to turn the corner, everything that once made Union addresses unifying must return: presidential maturity, a spike in the professionalism of Congressional members, willingness for bipartisanship, and legislators focused more on legislating than on political point-scoring.
The roots of the American tree are among the strongest in the world, especially in the context of democratic quality, wherein it can be labelled a cradle, and yet there is evidently a need to prune a lot of the newly-grown branches. How do we fix it? There is a lot to be said on this, worthy of a string of articles on the issue alone, but I do have one idea to be presented here. Maybe, to fix the failings of the State of the Union address, we need to have a State of the State of the Union address, and in that spirit, here’s one I prepared earlier:
My fellow Americans… it’s screwed.
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