You did not need to watch the speech.

Trump's State of the Union speech was a long, hard slog. 

A friend emailed me: "It is now 7:24, and I have turned to another program.

I emailed back: "I stopped at 6:33."

I watched excerpts and highlights this morning. I guessed wrong about Trump blasting the Supreme Court. By the standards of Trump, he gave them a pass. 

He simply called their ruling on tariffs "unfortunate."

Just four days ago an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court -- it just came down, it came down -- a very unfortunate ruling -- but the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made. . . before the Supreme Court's unfortunate involvement.  Despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful countries' saving -- it's saving our country, the kind of money we're taking in, peace protecting many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs.

It sounds like near gibberish. Trump was "weaving," doing free association. The takeaway is that he did not repeat calling them "fools" and "lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats." 

I stopped watching because the 15 minutes of celebration for the U.S. hockey team and repeated chants of "USA, USA, USA" near the beginning of Trump's speech bored me. We defeated Canada in a hockey game. Canada, that great evil empire? Say, what? We won a close game in overtime, and somehow this is the triumph of a great nation? It got tiresome for me.

Democrats know Trump's interpretation of events is laughably false, full of made up statistics, lies, mischaracterizations, self-aggrandizements, and unfair insults. Nevertheless, some 40 percent of Americans believe him. Or, don't exactly believe him, because it is so hyperbolic that it is obviously a salesman's puffery, but it is at least directionally true. Sort of true. It is a welcome truth that fits a comfortable partisan mindset. A person loyal to the GOP brand can relax into agreement.

Trump asserted:

--  Everything was terrible under Biden, just as it was under Obama. Trump inherited carnage upon his inauguration. Life under Democratic presidents is utterly different from life while Trump is president. 

---  Trump fixed everything. Inflation, the price of eggs and gasoline, immigration, crime generally, the murder rate, taxes, trade relations, and world peace. 

---  Democrats can win elections only if they cheat. If they win, it is because they cheated.

--- Trump has made the U.S. respected in the world. Under Democratic presidents, foreign leaders laughed at us and took advantage. Now we are feared and respected.

---  Tariffs are paid by foreign countries and they knuckle under because we have a strong president. It is bringing in lots of free money for us.

---  Trump has a medical plan in the works, and it will be great. Stupendously great. Just wait and watch.

---  Military power is solving the problems of the U.S. and the world. It brings us cheap oil, it stops drugs, and it settles wars between foreign nations. 

---  Trump is a full-throated patriotic cheerleader for America. America is good and great and always has been. We have nothing to regret.  

Support of Trump by Independent voters, in yellow, ticked up during the hockey celebration

Expressions of patriotism should be easy for a Democrat hoping to lead the party, but it will not be. America's mistakes are an integral part of the Democratic interest groups' understanding of today's problems. We own the past in order to improve and make that "more perfect union."

Trump tells Americans that they should be proud of themselves and their history, period. Forget any bad stuff that Democrats keep bringing up. It never happened, or if it did it is the fault of Democrats. We are strong and we are good. We are number one. We are winning and winning. USA! USA! USA!

There is a lesson here. Democrats may need to adopt a glass-half-full-and-filling-up tone. We are getting better all the time. Democrats are the party of progress, not regret. 

Remember: the speech that launched Barack Obama was one of pride and optimism. He said there are no blue states, no red states, no Black America, no White America. We go to church. We coach Little League. We are OK. And in the end, he said, the bedrock of this nation is the belief that there are better days ahead.

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