If you were one of those people who have given up on the news since the election and decided to watch last night's presidential speech before a joint session of Congress (a State of the Union address in all but name) you had to come away a little bit shell-shocked by what you heard. President Donald Trump delivered what felt like an interminable litany of his alleged accomplishments over the course of an hour and 40 minutes that would make anyone's hair stand on end if they hadn't heard it all before.
To set the stage, you would have had to know that the congressional Democrats have been hand-wringing for days over how they were going to handle the speech, seeing as Trump has been systematically dismantling the federal government, destroying the economy and discarding the existing world order. It just seemed wrong to behave as if this is business as usual despite the trappings of a normal State of the Union address. (In fact, one representative, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, stood silently holding a sign that said "this is not normal" until a Republican ripped it from her hands and tore it up as Donald Trump walked down the aisle to the podium.) In the end, many decided not to attend while others wore matching pink clothing, held up signs that said "false" or "save Medicaid." Some walked out at different times during the speech after Congressman Al Green of Texas yelled out and was forcibly removed. (Interesting that the same rule was not applied to Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert when they mercilessly heckled Joe Biden.)
