The State of the Union – A Tough Act To Follow

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Today I will be talking about the President’s State of the Union Message delivered before Congress and the American people. I say that it was a tough act to follow because the Democrats did not follow it very well and did not rebut it at all. They even tried to downplay their own polls because they clearly show overwhelming support by the American people who watched the speech.

State of the Union – the message

This State of the Union message was a good one, as these things usually go; maybe it was even a great one. The speech was remarkable in many ways. He seemed to be having a conversation with us rather than saying what he thought we wanted to hear. He was in full command of the issues and of the room. The Democrats weren’t ready for him, especially his call for unity, and it caught them on camera shaking their heads and just looking confused and whiny. I’m guessing now, but my guess is that many people were left wondering why Democrats hate him so much.

I’m not going to summarize the speech for you because you probably saw it and heard it. I will instead give you my view of a few highlights from it and then some of the Democrat responses including the official response given by Stacey Abrams who narrowly lost the election for Governor of Georgia last fall. The Democrat Party obviously thinks she is an up and comer or the future of the Party otherwise they would not have chosen her for such an important speech.

State of the Union – the reaction

The President opened with talk of unity and bipartisanship which the Democrats were not prepared for. They reacted with disrespect toward the President of the United States which I take as an indication that the animosity between them is personal, more than just a matter of policy disagreement. I don’t remember seeing all the paper shuffling and bored looks at the camera in a Presidential speech before. He tried to give us a glimpse of what he means by Make America Great Again by using the speech to celebrate heroism that is ordinary in America—the kind of heroism that is exhibited every day by ordinary Americans and that did get some positive reaction.

The Democrats obviously hate this man like they hate no other, and in my view, they hate those he represents as well. The hero bit embarrassed them a little but just a little bit I suspect. In other words, they don’t even have the decency to pretend to show respect to those parts of America that most of us love and grew up loving and believing were America. Invisible traits such as courage, integrity, and honor are probably lost on Democrats. The Democrats are starting to give up on pretense and finally show their true colors.

What Democrats really want

His announcement of new lows, all time lows, in unemployment for African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans was met with sullen silence. Why? Well, that question is an easy one to answer. They don’t want to see Republicans or anyone else improve the lives of minorities, economically or otherwise because they want minorities to need them and be dependent on them. They have to keep minorities down and deny them the real opportunity to achieve independence. To do otherwise would deny their power base and spoil their entire political plan for ruling in the future. They have to give their constituency something so they will vote, but not the keys which open the storehouse door.

He made his case for border security, immigration enforcement and a border wall. Border security provided him with what was perhaps his money quote of the evening: “No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working-class and America’s political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders, while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.” We’ll see if that is enough to embarrass them into cooperating on wall funding.

A show of moral superiority

Democrats so like to feel morally superior, as if they have the hold on some ancient religion and everyone else is a heretic. Some of the strong women Democrats, all resplendent in white suits wore pins to honor a Guatemalan girl who apparently died in the custody of border security but no pins for Kate Steinli, Mollie Tibbetts, or for many others murdered by people in this country illegally.

 I suppose moral superiority and outrage are what they are trying to project with their white clothes, their pins, and their bored stone faced expressions. But from where does morality originate? The President talked a little about abortion in light of recent laws in Massachusetts, Virginia and other states liberalizing late term abortion and, in the opinion of the Governor of Virginia, even after the infant is born. That’s what he called the human babies about to be killed, infants, and he would let them be killed after they are actually through the birth canal and outside their mothers’ body.

In other words, Democrats favor infanticide, once a practice reserved for savage, barbaric cultures similar to cannibalism. No wonder so many Democrats have been involved, or at least accused of so much child sexual abuse. Why should they care about children at all, except for one’s own convenience.

Support for infanticide

This new legislation, then, is a return to the ancient days of barbaric cruelty and is clear evidence of pervasive moral rot affecting a great amount of our culture, especially politics. To whom do they see themselves as morally superior? To what god do we sacrifice our children? It is a very strange god indeed, this god called choice, that demands our children as living sacrifices, and punishes minstrel show yearbook pictures, but not cold blooded murder with malice.

Calling out the socialists

The President also said to a room full of socialists, “America will never be a socialist country.” His actual quote was “Here in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence—not government coercion, domination and control. We are born free and we will stay free. America will never be a socialist country.” Many of the Democrat Socialists sitting there listening to him, those like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria  Ocasio-Cortez, glared back at him. I suppose they want the power over others that socialism would give them. The power to force others to work as slaves while they exploit and steal their labor must be very enticing.

State of the Union – the people

To this point I haven’t said much about the Democrat response to the President’s speech. I suppose that’s because there wasn’t much of a Democrat response. They must have sensed a real problem in framing their response because even their own polls showed an overwhelming favorable impression of the speech. The CBS poll was 76% favorable among those who watched the speech. Seventy-two per cent overall said they approved of the immigration part of his speech and his immigration proposals in general. That 72% must be very difficult for the Democrats who allowed the government to shut down over the issue.

Even CNN, not exactly a bastion of conservative thought, had a 56% very positive, 17% somewhat positive with only 23% negative. So 73% of those polled by CNN, i.e. their own listeners, were either very positive or somewhat positive. The Democrats seemed to be watching a different President than were the voters. For about 2 years now these Democrat news services have been telling us how horrible this man is but in the SOTU address people could see and hear for themselves. People of goodwill, people who love America, and want the best for it sometimes see things differently than a room full of Democrat politicians.

State of the Union – non-rebuttal rebuttal

Stacey Abrams, who gave the Democrat response, lost a very hotly contested race for governor of Georgia last fall. My information is that she lost by less than 1% of the vote so she is definitely someone to be taken seriously. The Democrat power elite obviously see her as the future of the Democrat Party both as to her views and as to the demographic makeup of the party. So she had the microphone and the stage in front of America and the whole world. She didn’t say much of any substance and she didn’t challenge the President’s policy positions at all. She talked about her family life and explained that her mother worked in a library and her father in a shipyard. Working class, in other words, but not shockingly so, like the really desperate people I see coming into my law office each day.

Since she lost the election she had to talk about voting rights and how denial of the vote is threatening our democracy. Not much about how all this is happening and nothing about how to fix it. Nothing about illegal immigrants and other non-citizens being allowed to vote by the tens of thousands which many states have admitted.

Summing up

Finally, folks, I liked the speech and saw it as a celebration of America, but the hard Democrat ladies in white saw it differently. The only thing they seemed motivated to celebrate was themselves.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle.