If there’s one thing I definitely don’t miss about America, it's the saccharine ass-kissing that goes on during the State of the Union address. Chants of “USA! USA!” rang out, as if The Donald were announcing a hockey game. It’s positively juvenile.

Half that chamber hates his guts, and the other half resents having to do his bidding to retain their precious seats.

The needless clapping after every sentence… the hooting and hollering about every stat, made up or not… the currying of favor by bureaucrats, apparatchiks, and other tax parasites… shits me to tears.

80 million barrels of oil from “our new friend and partner” Venezuela? My goodness, the man has brass balls!

Of course, the State of the Union Address was originally intended to make the President more accountable to the American people. But many years ago, it mutated into a chance for the incumbent to take a victory lap, whether it’s deserved or not.

The U.S. Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey Team, gold medal winners and victors over the hapless Canadians, were paraded out so The Donald could bask in their reflected glory. It was absolutely cringeworthy.

How many standing ovations does Congress have to give the President? How much is enough?

Hosting the World Cup and the Summer Olympics… Who cares?

I’ll break the President’s claims into three groups: good stuff, questionable stuff, and nonsense. Let’s start with the good stuff.

Good Stuff

“I signed [an] executive order to ban large Wall Street investment firms [from] buying up in the thousands single-family homes. And now I’m asking Congress to make that ban permanent, because all this for people, really, that’s what we want. We want homes for people, not for corporations. Corporations are doing just fine.”

Larry “Rat” Fink over at BlackRock, the new kids at KKR, and Steve Schwarzman at Blackstone should be tarred and feathered for buying up residential properties with their Federal Reserve-funded credit lines. Oh, here come the libertarians telling me how my position is anti-free market.

No, you ideologues. Allowing the Fed to print money and hand it to private equity so they can purchase houses makes every house more expensive due to inflation and diminished supply. There’s no question this should be illegal, and, for once, punished to the fullest extent of the law. 

“We have an old grid. It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that’s needed. So I’m telling them they can build their own plant. They’re going to produce their own electricity.”

Good on many counts. America’s awful grid gets a stay of execution. AI companies will need to build small modular nuclear reactors to create enough energy for their AI bots. And people who don’t use AI won’t get hit with costs they’re not actually incurring. Silicon Valley has plenty of money to pay for this stuff. Let them.

“The proposed changes mandate that eligible voters present proof of citizenship — such as a valid U.S. passport or a birth certificate paired with valid photo identification — when registering to vote. The revised version also stipulates that voters must provide photo ID when they cast their ballots.”

Here’s a home truth. You have no idea how stupid America looks now that the world knows anyone can vote, even if they’re not a citizen. No ID? Really? The first thing I did when I arrived in Italy to vote for Giorgia Meloni was to show my ID. It’s not an imposition. It’s a necessity when you let 11 million people stroll into your country.

“Members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from insider information.” (Practically the entire House rises.) “They [the Democrats] stood up for that? I can’t believe it. Did Nancy Pelosi stand up if she’s here? Doubt it. Pass the Stop Insider Trading Act without delay.”

It’s hilarious because it’s true. That any member of Congress can currently legally profit from insider information is a shitstain on the House, Senate, and America herself. How could this possibly be allowed? This kind of corruption hurts America’s reputation.

Questionable Stuff

“In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States.”

Yes, the numbers are way, way down. But saying things like “zero” only invites the opposition to call The Donald a liar. The facts are good enough. In 2024, the last full year of Joke Biden’s sorry presidency, there were over 1.5 million encounters with migrants attempting to cross the border illegally. In 2025, the first full year of Trump’s second term in office, that number dropped to just under 28,000. Fantastic progress, but it’ll never be “zero.”

DHS is targeting the “worst of the worst.”

Again, I believe this is true. But anyone… and I mean anyone… who’s in America illegally is, by definition, a criminal. This kind of language needlessly panders to the Democrats instead of frankly reframing the issue.

And look at how the idiots over at ABC News “fact checked” this (bolds mine):

According to the data, about one-fourth (or 26%) of detainees on Feb. 7 were considered “convicted criminals.” Another 26% had pending criminal charges. 47% or 32,364 detainees were classified as “other immigration violators,” people with no criminal convictions or pending charges. 

In other words, 73% of detainees on Feb. 7 had no criminal convictions.

Or, in other words, 52% of all detainees were either convicted criminals or had criminal charges pending. The rest were just here illegally, though that’s not considered “criminal” for some reason. God, I hate the lamestream media.

“Inflation is plummeting… the roaring economy is roaring like never before.”

Inflation has fallen from 2.9% to 2.4%. That’s disinflation, not price deflation, which is what most Americans need right now. But since The Donald doesn’t want house prices to come down, he’s in a pickle. As for the roaring economy… by what standard?

Nonsense

“We’re winning too much.”

“America is respected again, perhaps like never before.”

From where I’m sitting, both these statements are self-evidently false. But then again, I was in New Jersey when Ronald Reagan was president. There was nothing like it, and I suspect there hasn’t been since.

If you want a reminder of how America used to be respected, watch old movies like Casablanca, To Catch a Thief, or Charade. You may find yourself yearning for a time you may not have experienced for yourself.

Wrap Up

Trump’s State of the Union address did what it needed to do. It solidified The Donald’s positions, poked fun at his adversaries, and probably relieved some Americans concerning his policies.

I could do without the pomp and circumstance and sheer buffoonery of the occasion, but it’s not a show for me. It’s for the American people. Hopefully, they feel better than they did before the speech.