Some wise words from a Never-Trumper. Rick Wilson in the Daily Beast wrote about the SOTU. Here’s the conclusion:
Trump knew this speech had a utility for his campaign, and that it is framed against the impeachment acquittal vote on Wednesday. He knows that soon—very soon—he’ll enjoy the fruits of Mitch McConnell’s labor. He knows that after he is acquitted in the Senate there is no power in American government that will constrain him again. He knows he is about to hold executive power at a level no president before him could have imagined. That knowledge was enough to have him read off the teleprompter for one night.
It wasn’t the speech that Trump wanted to give, which we’ll hear soon enough.
“The state of the union is pure, weapons-grade, uncut fucking chaos, and I am both unhinged and unbound from any consequence, ever. All the pretty words my speechwriters worked so hard on are a thin veneer over the seething mass of coming horrors. I have gambled our economy, compromised our security, and shredded our dignity, and I’ll do it again. My message to the American people: bend the knee. To my enemies: vengeance is coming.”
That “bend the knee, vengeance is coming” ethos is infecting our entire political culture. It is authoritarianism in plain sight. Liberals and progressives who still care about freedom, equality and civil liberties had better gird themselves for this fight.