When President Donald Trump takes center stage tonight to deliver his fourth official State of the Union address, it will follow a massive Washington snowstorm. Amid Arctic-level temperatures, the political temperature will be the opposite, the equivalent of an oppressive August day.
Even the left would agree that the state of the American Union circa 2026 is hot, but, as Bill Clinton might say, it depends on what the meaning of hot is. For Trump and the right, it translates to a revival of patriotism, economic growth well beyond expectations — more than 4% and likely rising — a freshly secured border, and multiple breathtaking military strikes and political triumphs from the Middle East to Venezuela that have changed the world.
But for those on the left, it means reverting to their pre-scripted outrage from talking points apparently written on the back of a napkin that awful night in November 2024 when they were stripped of power. Their argument goes something like this: Of course, things are hot when the fascist in charge has no respect for the Constitution or its checks and balances, his racism and inhumanity are exemplified by the brutality of ICE, and his naked thirst for power immortality is marked by appending his name to long-standing institutions, thus rendering his so-called accomplishments all but meaningless. And that’s about it. They can hardly argue against a rising tide in the economy, tamping down inflation, or attracting trillions in fresh investments. They dare not take issue with his success in establishing the multi-national Board of Peace to rescue Gaza, neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program, or capturing the narco-terrorist running Venezuela.
State of the Union — Hot or Too Hot?
On a cautionary note, a hot country does not guarantee success for as far as the eye can see, especially when we’re talking about Trump-hot. While he has pulled off awe-inspiring strikes in Iran and Venezuela, his risk tolerance is as high as any president in memory, and with risks come a greater possibility of reversals. Likewise, when financial markets overheat, the inevitable result is an unsustainable growth of assets, from real estate to financial markets, that later crash and burn.
The president has always lived on the edge, extending his power to the limits and sometimes — as with tariffs — beyond its constitutional restraints, challenging Congress and the courts to stop him. At the same time, those on the left who complain about his abuse of power fail to understand that every president does — at some time and in some way — test the outer limits of his power. For example, Biden did it with student loan forgiveness, which was twice ruled to be unconstitutional by the courts. Famously, Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to coerce Congress to pass his plan to pack the Supreme Court so he could force through New Deal programs the court rejected as unconstitutional, but he was overruled by Congress.
This is not to suggest that the unmistakable signs of an economic upturn, and very possibly an outright boom, are not real, only that success is fragile. This president learned that the hard way when he was presiding over a robust economy and believed he was on a glide path to re-election in 2020. And then the pandemic hit, and all was lost.
Trump has promised to campaign in 2026 as hard as he did in 2024 and in his two previous campaigns, though his absence on the ballot represents a major handicap for the GOP. Since the agendas of the president and the left are predictable, the most pressing question about tonight’s address — and unofficial launch onto the campaign trail — is how much time he will spend on his own voluminous accomplishments, and how much on talking down the left in order to lay the political groundwork for November’s midterms.
In last year’s State of the Union, Trump’s beaten enemies were reduced to holding little round signs with embarrassingly laughable three-to-five-word slogans that looked like they were either made for those who are deaf or hearing impaired or represented the sum total of their thinking. In the eyes of the nation, they were representative of a party that had nothing to say beyond the long-since-exhausted trope that Trump is evil.
The difference is that at last year’s speech, weeks after he assumed office, the defiance from those on the left was typified by the hilarious cane-waving antics of Rep. Al Green (D-TX) and exposed them merely as sore losers. But now that Trump has built an exhaustive record as an activist president, they will at least be able to expand his worst and most vulnerable moments into the totality of his historic presidency.
The Democrats’ official equal-time response will be handled by the new governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger. But no less than nine other Democrats on the far left will participate in three additional responses aimed at particular demographic groups, begging the question of why they continue to present a fractured message. One element these are certain to have in common is bitter condemnation of the 47th president. As they say, Trump could walk on water, and the left would say he can’t swim.
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