Trump Hosts a Boring Fascist Rally for State of the Union

On this day in 1987, the US Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision upholding affirmative action, a concept the Trump-Vance administration endorses now solely for unimpressive white people.

Good morning. Swin and Andrew here. We were up late last night because (like some of you, probably, maybe) we were watching and ranting about Donald Trump’s 18-year-long speech about how awesome and non-elite-pedophilia-linked the first year of his new presidency has been. It was like listening to one of the more moronic speeches delivered by Nicolae Ceaușescu, though to be fair, the late Romanian dictator’s speechwriters were funnier than whoever threw this Republican SOTU slop together.

In today’s ‘First Draft,’ we examine the dark, hate-filled heart of President Trump’s State of the Union snoozefest, the Trump administration demands the right to have AI-powered killer drones, and Marco Rubio heads to Capitol Hill to make the case for another one of Trump’s asinine wars.

It wasn’t a State of the Union address, not really. It was a fascist rally peppered with flop-sweat one-liners, ring-led by a man who often sounded bored by his own teleprompted script. The energy was through the floor, yes. And there was so much implicit begging for the American people not to hate him as much as they do that the elderly grandpa in a bright red tie standing on Capitol Hill might as well have been President Gil Gunderson, if that ‘Simpsons’ character were also an adulterous Falangist.

But the onrush of pathetic begging and Trump’s soporific rhythm risked masking a graver truth: This was the most openly racist State of the Union in modern history, where President Trump spent protracted portions of the nationally televised address spewing his hatred of Somali Americans with all the dignity and panache of banned 4chan content. It was also the longest State of the Union address ever – and certainly one of the worst – and Republicans’ constant agreement and laughing along with Trump came across like the sound of one hand clapping.

Watch the lowlights from Trump’s 107-minute address in… two minutes, courtesy of Zeteo:

After nearly an hour of wind-up, Trump went full ethnic-cleanser. He repeatedly bashed immigrants and the “scourge of illegal immigration,” while citing individual murders and calling on the victims’ families in the audience. He promised an expanded “war on fraud” to be led by Vice President JD Vance. He took aim at Minnesota and its Somali community, after putting the state under violent occupation by masked federal agents, who have been filmed killing people and routinely brutalizing protesters as they go about racially profiling and kidnapping residents.

“When it comes to the corruption that is plundering America, there has been no more stunning example than Minnesota – where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer,” the president demagogued. “California, Massachusetts, Maine, and many other states are even worse,” he said, ominously. (Trump’s already sent ICE to terrorize these states’ residents, on a smaller scale.)

And then came the yo-ho-ho line that multiple White House aides messaged Swin late Tuesday, saying how it proved how clever and funny they all are, in the Trump-Vance administration.