Trump’s 100-minute spectacle was a stale rerun of his authoritarian fantasy—lies, cruelty and economic sabotage.
Another day, another spectacle. Donald Trump stood before Congress, chest puffed, voice dripping with his usual combination of self-congratulatory aggrandizement and persecuted victimhood. He berated and bemoaned, bloviated and bragged, promising a return to greatness while laying out an agenda built on lies, cruelty, and economic ruin. It was the longest presidential address to Congress in modern history—100 minutes of revisionism, dog whistles, and threats disguised as oratory—a poor showing of authoritarian theater, featuring a tired actor in a bad play we've all seen before.
He called it a comeback. But a comeback for whom? Certainly not the working-class families wondering how they'll afford groceries next month. Not the government employees he gleefully axed from their jobs. Not the global allies left scrambling after his reckless foreign policy reversals. And certainly not the American democracy still battered from his latest, grasping attempt to overthrow it.
Trump's economic vision? Tariffs, tariffs, and more tariffs. His new round of economic warfare will hammer working-class Americans, trigger price hikes, and throw financial markets into disarray—all while he and his billionaire buddies profit. He calls it "reciprocal trade." But there's nothing reciprocal about a president tanking the economy for personal gain.
Trump wants credit for every economic upturn but takes responsibility for nothing. Markets tumble? Must be Biden's fault. The cost of living soars? Blame immigrants. Trillions added to the debt? That's just the price of his tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy. He's not fixing the economy; he's strip-mining it for parts.
And Republicans? Many of them know better. Some even stayed seated during his tariff proclamation. But Trump doesn't need their approval—just their silence. And silence is exactly what they gave him.
There was no mistaking the overt bigotry in Trump's address. Immigrants? "Savages." Trans people? A threat to be eradicated. Democratic lawmakers protesting his authoritarian agenda? "Radicals." Every line was a test: Would his audience cheer loud enough? Would the spectacle be grand enough? Could he push just a little further this time?
With the exception of Rep. Al Green, Democrats protested like so many gormless mice who are mildly uncomfortable with the murderous antics of the house cat but just don't want to make a scene. They quietly held up ping-pong paddle signs: "No King!" "This is NOT Normal." Very demure, etc. It didn't matter. Trump thrives on division. He baited them, relished the timidity of their anger, and then used their sole walkout as proof that he alone is the champion of real Americans.
This is the playbook of strongmen: Make the opposition look weak. Stoke the fires of resentment. Turn governing into a circus. And if you can slip in a little admiration for dictators while at it—why not?
Trump wants us to believe he's the dealmaker who can bring peace to the world. And yet, just days before his speech, he humiliated himself before Ukraine's president and the world on live television and froze military aid in a petulant fit of pique, leaving the country vulnerable to Russia's ongoing invasion.
Why? Because Trump has never hidden where his allegiance lies. He floats the idea that Ukraine "started the war." He calls Putin "strong." He tells us that peace is within reach—if only we'd be willing to surrender.
But Americans aren't buying it. A new poll shows 70% of the country knows exactly who's to blame: Russia. Two-thirds of Republicans included. No amount of Trump's gaslighting can change reality.
Trump's budget proposals are an extension of his worldview: Reward the rich, punish the poor, and call it patriotism. He promises tax cuts while ballooning the deficit. He slashes government services while expanding corporate handouts.
He touts a border crackdown, boasts about a "record low" in migrant arrests, and continues to wield immigrants as a scapegoat for every American struggle. He wants mass deportations. He wants cruelty codified into law. And he wants Congress to sign the check.
We've been here before. We know what happens when Trump is given unchecked power. He doesn't govern—he rules. He doesn't unite—he divides. And he doesn't build the future—he cashes out while he can.
Trump stood at that podium like a man auditioning for a role he already lost, barking his grievances, fabricating his victories, and daring anyone to stop him. He discredits fear for loyalty, applause for belief, and silence for consent. He is a man incapable of shame, incapable of growth, incapable of anything but the endless, scheming pursuit of more—more power, more vengeance, more destruction in his wake.
But he is not the real danger. The threat is the machinery that enables him, the hollowed-out party that follows him not out of conviction but out of cowardice and greed, the billionaires and bottom-feeders who see in him a golden opportunity, the media that still cannot resist gawking at the spectacle, and the polite Democrats who wouldn't know good trouble if it slapped them in the face. The real danger is a nation that has seen all of this before and still pretends there was ever a choice to be made.
There wasn't. There isn’t. There is no pivot. No lesson learned. No new version of Trump, remade, repackaged, disciplined. There is only the same man, the same con, the same ruinous agenda—but this time, sharper, angrier, more desperate.
