I watched the State of the Union address to the nation by President Donald Trump on Tuesday night. I really enjoyed it, and thought it was an excellent showcase of Republican party priorities, as well as showing voters Trump’s vision for the future, heading towards the mid-term elections. I was shocked to hear that polls show that Trump is under 50% popularity. Honestly, Trump was not my guy in the 2024 primary, but he has seriously outperformed.

Let’s start with the video of the speech itself:

I have to say that I like a tight speech, and this speech could have been a double-episode of Knight and Rose Show. He didn’t deliver it “scripted” but there was no rambling. For the first time since Trump became a high-profile Republican, I actually thought “this is a person who does a good job advocating for many of the things I care about – not just with words, but with achievements”. So let’s see some of Trump’s demonstrated achievements.

This article from The Federalist by Brianna Lyman lists a few of the things that he highlighed in the speech:

• The Duty of American Government Is to Protect American Citizens
• Flow of Fentanyl Across Southern Border Plummets
• Decline in Murder Rate
• Inflation Coming Down
• Justice for Iryna Zarutska
• Washington D.C.’s Safer
• Protecting Children From Satanic Trans Cult

The speech was crafted in a way that it would appeal to 70-80 percent of voters, regardless of party. But even so, the Democrat legislators refused to stand up and applaud for all these good things.

Let’s look at one of the things in Brianna’s list:

The president… spoke out about the satanic, left-wing efforts to mutilate children suffering from gender dysphoria.

Trump spoke about Sage Blair, who was 14 years old in 2021 when “school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

Blair was placed into an all-boys state home following an order from an activist judge after Blair’s parents refused to affirm their daughter’s gender dysphoria, Trump said. Eventually, Blair was returned to her parents and is now comfortable in the body God gave her.

“We can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will,” Trump said. “We must ban it and we must ban it immediately.”

But Democrats refused to stand.

“Look, nobody stands up,” Trump said. “These people are crazy, I’m telling you. They’re crazy.”

They didn’t stand for any of the 7 achievements. So what do we get from this? Well, Trump can decide to prioritize lots of things as President. But what he prioritized was protecting innocent people from criminals and protecting innocent children from greedy child abusers. These things are popular with American voters. But Democrat legislators wouldn’t stand for them.

Let’s get out of the tactical weeds, and look at strategy. An article by Elle Purnell from The Federalist talked about the big differences between the two political parties.

The big difference is that Republicans think that American citizens are their bosses, and Democrats thin that illegal immigrant criminals are their bosses. Trump proved it with his speech:

[I]n Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Donald Trump urged every member of Congress to “stand up and show your support” for the statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Cameras panned to show nearly the entire left-hand side of the chamber awkwardly remaining in their seats. After two minutes of Republican cheering and Democrat scowling, Trump suggested that Democrats should “be ashamed of yourselves,” and the cameras showed Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Mogadishu, shouting angrily in response.

Another big difference between the parties is that Republicans think that people in the armed forces who take risks and pay a price to serve their country deserve to be honored. Democrats don’t think that people in the armed forces should be honored.

The article notes:

Throughout the address, Trump handed out medals to American heroes left and right: Medals of Honor to 100-year-old war hero Navy Captain Royce Williams and to Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, a pilot in the recent capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.

I have to mention that Slover served with the US Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), a very prestigious unit that does all the flying for covert operations, including hostage rescues. I read an entire book about them called “The Night Stalkers”. I read this book because I wanted to be more informed about them so that I could be more thankful and respectful about their deeds. This particular pilot Slover had both of his legs shot up by foreign security forces during the mission to deliver Venezuela from the tyranny of communism. He was standing on crutches.

Yet the Democrats would not stand up and applaud – for a Medal of Honor recipient. I doubt that Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib even know what a Medal of Honor is! I’ve read three books about Medal of Honor recipients. It should be required reading for immigrants. How can you live in this country and not know anything about the sort of people who make it safe for you to live here? When I am in a grocery store, I always go up to people who have Vietnam War or Korean War caps on, to talk to them. I want to praise them for their actions in our noble wars against communism. Republicans are people who know history and who respect heroes in the armed forces.

So, why post something about this speech? Well, this might sound crazy to people who think that Trump is a bad guy with bad character, but I think they should watch the speech. The corporate news media has been carefully indoctrinating voters with left-wing stories about the Trump administration. But the speech put the lie to all of that. I highly recommend sending the speech to people you know ahead of the mid-terms. Now is the time to get people in the middle to be aware of what the Republican party actually stands for. Don’t wait for the corporate news media to speak to your family and friends, they’re not going to do it fairly. You will have to do it.