There was a ghost at Trump's feast — it will be back to haunt him soon enough

Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech was pretty much exactly what we expected: one that depicted a nation utterly unlike the one we live in: where the economy is glowing with health, mass deportations of undocumented immigrants are going swimmingly, democracy is flourishing, everyone is ecstatic over our leadership, and respect from the international community stands at an all-time high.

This delusional picture was painted by the president over 107 torturous minutes, a wildly rambling explosion of syllables that claimed to describe “The Golden Age of America” but in fact flailed through lies, half-truths, exaggerations, and condemnations that bore little resemblance to reality.

It was a charade as shameless as the man himself, using war heroes, gold medal-winning Olympic athletes, and victims of immigrant crime as political props. It employed the most violent, gory imagery to describe incidents intended to emphasize the ongoing need for mass deportations but that made him sound like a bloodthirsty sadist.

Oh, and the Epstein Files? Never came up. Trump failed to acknowledge the survivors who were in the chamber. Shocker!

Trump claimed to have “inherited a nation in crisis” with a “stagnant economy” and a “wide open border” as well as “rampant crime,” but in a single year to have “achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages” and an “economy that is roaring like never before.”

In fact, the economy is in free fall and he has divided the country like never before while threatening to transform our democracy into a fascist state — largely succeeding in turning allies into our enemies and peaceful communities into strife-torn zones of fear and paranoia.

A few of the most cringeworthy moments:

• “I will always protect Social Security and Medicare!” Trump declared. Oh yeah, except for that more than $1 trillion in catastrophic cuts to Medicaid and a ravaging of Social Security’s infrastructure.

• “Stand up if you believe the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens,” Trump proclaimed. Most Democrats didn’t, giving Trump his midterm campaign photo op as he shook his head and scowled. “Liar! You killed Americans!” shouted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

• He claimed once again to have “ended eight wars” but stopped short of demanding the Nobel Peace Prize. A grateful nation sighed in silent relief.

• Trump bragged about booting 2.4 million people off food stamps, as if helping people starve was a virtue.

• As Trump dove into immigration, crime, alleged election insecurity, and gender-related issues, he motioned toward the stone-faced Democrats and went off-script. “These people are crazy!” he shouted. “Boy oh boy, we’re lucky we still have a country with people like this. Democrats are destroying our country, but we’ve stopped it just in the nick of time.” A clear case of projection.

• He claimed his invisible policies would soon drive down high health-care costs somehow caused by Democrats, despite the elimination of Affordable Care Act subsidies in Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill and millions facing accelerating charges or being booted off their insurance entirely.

• “Tariffs will replace income tax!” he declared, purportedly as a way to fund the federal government. This spoke to Trump’s habit of just saying whatever sounds good in the moment, even if it’s utterly insane.

• There was his quick aside rejecting his loss in 2020 (you may have heard this before) by noting almost under his breath, “This should be my third term. Strange things happen.” Did this mean he could have gone against the Constitution and run for a third term had he won in 2020? Is his predicted refusal to ever leave office what he meant by “Strange things happen”? It's unclear, like much of what he babbles.

• Trump is appointing Vice President J.D. Vance to head up a “war on fraud” task force. Speaking of putting the wolf in charge of the hen house.

• “The cheating in our elections is rampant!” Trump screamed. “It’s rampant … They want to cheat. They have cheated. And their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat and we’re going to stop it.”

This was the same old BS. But it was also incredibly dangerous, continuing to push the idea that the only way the Democrats win is through fraud when in fact that’s the Republican plan, for the midterms and beyond. It serves to justify whatever Trump will do, from the SAVE Act to stationing ICE agents at the polls to working the courts to God knows what else.

The constant standing ovations from Republicans seemed especially prolonged, the “spontaneous” chants of “USA! USA!” particularly boorish and annoying.

As many voices on social media were quick to point out, this sounded more like a MAGA campaign rally than an address on how well, or not, the union was doing. Trump has only one gear. He doesn’t do unity or compassion or humility. It’s all about, “I’m amazing,” “I’ve done more and better than anyone,” and “These other guys are all scumbags and lunatics.”

But Trump’s bluster is destined to have the opposite effect of what he intends. The nearly two-thirds of the country that disapprove of his performance aren’t interested in a deceiver and a braggart. It will only infuriate the multitudes who know he’s feeding them a steady diet of horse manure.

A carefully choreographed sideshow like the one Trump centered on Tuesday may give him a small popularity bounce this week, but it won’t last. In fact, the blizzard of false claims is fated to backfire and send his numbers plummeting further.

Whether or not this even matters to him is unclear. But it should rightly scare the hell out of those Republicans facing elections in November.

• Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.