“No nation should ever doubt America’s resolve. We have the most powerful military on earth. We have to be strong, because hopefully we will seldom have to use this great power that we built together. It’s really called peace through strength and it’s been very, very effective.” – Donald J. Trump
The growing similarities between 1984 and the state of our union are laughable. “Peace through strength” fits in with a host of other phrases out of Orwell’s epic: “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”
A few years ago, I would’ve told you that our country moves more along the lines of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, with exorbitant amounts of things to keep us happy and distracted and fitting neatly into our class system.
Now, we get to keep the class system, none of the happiness, and live in constant fear of a growing regime that has no plans of forfeiting any power whatsoever.
Despite the lack of any real information being communicated, the State of the Union applause was comparable to an awards ceremony for how many standing ovations there were, and is somewhat reminiscent of Stalin’s historic 11-minute standing ovation in 1937 that ended with an arrest for the first party member to stop clapping.
What remains important is not abiding by the fear the Republican Party sows with the Democrats.
For much of the applause and charades surrounding the celebration of a poor second term for Trump, the Democrats sat silent. GOP strategists love this for the express purpose of spinning it against Democrats.
“If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens,” and while the Democratic Party sat without a sound, Republicans stood in droves to show sentimental support.
While the Republicans have had a run of bad luck this last year thanks to the endless engine of executive orders, this is the turn they see in their favor with the American people.
Of course, this would not be a real State of the Union without the only real thing that holds our precious Union together: war, in the Middle East.
It was rare for Democrats to join hands across the aisle, with one instance being for stricter regulation on congressional stock trading, and the other concerning Iran’s nuclear capability.
Despite being a president of “No More Wars,” Trump has already taken some steps into the Middle East with the same weapons of mass destruction hysteria we saw just a few decades ago. After all, just last June, we had already started bombing facilities in Iran as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, and with our stronger-than-ever ties to Israel, a growing conflict only stands to bring us into the forefront of the action for the umpteenth time.
But hey, what could our beloved country ever be without some action in the Middle East?
What should anger people most is Trump’s lack of news regarding the nature of our union itself. He may speak whatever lies he pleases about the strength of our dying economy, because while on paper our GDP may be the highest it’s ever been, that doesn’t change a thing about affordability for the average American.
He can speak on drug–related violence without speaking about how we have hurt these countries with our military operations and illegal kidnappings. But what he didn’t even bother mentioning was the state of our states, specifically Minnesota.
On Wednesday, JD Vance announced that approximately a quarter-billion dollars in Medicaid funding will be withheld from the state of Minnesota in accordance with Trump’s “war on fraud.” It could not be more obvious that this is a cover-up for his actual intentions with this, and this funding covers around one in four Minnesotans.
Per the Geneva Convention, it is a war crime to prevent access to healthcare for civilians. Gov. Tim Walz fired back on X, formerly Twitter, saying that, “This has nothing to do with fraud, the agents Trump allegedly sent to investigate fraud are shooting protesters and arresting children. His DOJ is gutting the US Attorney’s Office and crippling their ability to prosecute fraud. And every week Trump pardons another fraudster.”
And he’s right. If Trump really cared about fraud, he wouldn’t do this. Minnesota has around a 2.1% misusage rate in Medicaid funding, which is 4% lower than the national average, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, led by Trump appointee Mehmet Oz.
This State of the Union addressed the wrong issues and even did that wrong. A profound drought of helpful information with a flood of pomp and circumstance for the longest address our nation has ever seen at 1:47 was all we witnessed. And don’t forget, Trump holds second place for the longest speech as well.
