SOTU, Sorta

     It was a campaign speech.  I kept dozing off as he droned on and on, from distortion to misstatement to outright lie, with a few stops for non-partisan moments recognizing heroes and outstanding athletes that it would be petty to criticize.

     But it was a campaign speech, and not even one of his best, full of scorched-earth partisanship and moments for the base to applaud.  I was offended by his claims about the economy -- things might be looking up for the owner class, but down here where you punch a time clock, my bills haven't stopped going up and my paycheck is nowhere close to keeping pace.

     If you're a big ol' Donald Trump fan, it was probably a fine speech, despite the record-setting length, right up there with Cold War screeds from the leaders of the Soviet Union.  If you're not a fan, there was nothing it it to win you over.

     From where I stand, the President of the United States is living in a fantasy world, along with most of his party's office-holders and good many of the opposition's.  They're all clueless limo-riders who haven't had to buy groceries at the supermarket since they were in college, if then, and the venture capitalists who collect 'em like trading cards are more of the same.  These are not people to trust holding the future -- they don't care about breaking it because they think they've already bought it. 

     As for actual content, like the possibility of war against Iran, the looming shortage in farm workers, the steady increase in the price of almost everything?  Forget it.  He did assert unilateral authority to levee tariffs except in the way recently barred by the U. S. Supreme -- but he was careful to shake the hands of the Justices on his way in, because he can't afford another slap-down from them.

     We were screwed at sunrise on Tuesday.  We were still screwed at midnight last night.  The State of the Union speech didn't change anything.  No, wait, it changed one thing: leading stocks were headed down, down, down yesterday and this morning, they're slightly up.  That's got to be great news for anyone with a significant stock portfolio, like the president and board members of the corporation I work for.  I couldn't be happier for them!  --But it hasn't changed a thing for me, and it won't, same as it hasn't for the vast majority of Americans.