The 2019 SotU

Pundits have been predicting that President Trump would use his State of the Union speech to bash Democrats and declare a state of emergency. Neither happened, Instead he gave a true state of the union, ticking off his accomplishments and setting some reasonable goals. It was a far cry from the standard shopping list of things the president wants but will never happen that we've heard for the last several decades. Trump's speech was both uplifting and fun.

Best parts

• His guests. Most of them were special people. The list included two ex-convicts, some survivors of D-Day, one of whom also was par of the liberation of Holocaust victims and, beside him, a survivor of the Holocaust and of the Tree of Life shooting. He also had Buzz Aldrin, a young cancer survivor, and others. All of them deserved the applause they got.
• The spontaneous rendition of Happy Birthday for the Holocaust survivor with Trump conducting a few seconds. That was an amazing moment and shows American exceptionalism.
• Trump getting the women in white to stand and applaud. There were supposed to be there in white to protest him but he got them to applaud then joked that they weren't supposed to do that.
• Trump denouncing Socialism.
  

The worst parts

• The Democrats, particularly the women in white refusing to applaud things like record low minority unemployment.
• Speaker Pelosi constantly looking through a stack of papers. As far as I can tell, she had marked where in the speech she was supposed to send pre-written tweets and was having trouble keeping her place. This was an amazingly disrespectful performance.

Other observations

• The hard core women in white were all in the front. They refused to applaud for much of anything. The women behind them were much looser and more likely to applaud.
• The Democratic response was largely wasted. Stacy Abrams spent too much time on her own biography and attributing her election loss to voter suppression.
• The Democrats had to use the loser of an election for give the response because nearly everyone else is running or expected to run and the party would erupt in civil war if one of the candidates got the national exposure that the response gives.
• Bernie Saunders spent almost a half hour, three times as long as Abrams, on his own response. I watched most of it. I think that this marks the end of his chances at the presidency. He sounded like a humorless old scold.
• Saunders argued that wages aren't as high as they were in 1972. This is irrelevant to nearly everyone since you have to be in your late 60s to have worked then. Earning power dropped precipitously in 1979 and has been growing ever since. There was a drop in 2008 but it has been more that regained and current earning power is about as high as it has been in 40 years. Bernie went back to 1972 because that was a historic high point. The rest of his speech was similarly weighted.