The Chicago Tribune Editorial Board
A CNN instant poll after Tuesday night’s joint address to Congress reported that 66% of speech watchers said that President Donald Trump’s policies will move America in the right direction. That’s a pretty good snapshot of how the night went for Democrats, who spent the evening disrupting the proceedings, walking out, refusing to stand for ordinary Americans who had been through all manner of traumas and paddle-raising their policy disagreements as if they were at some kind of elite fundraising gala — events with which many of them are all too familiar.
It was a sorry sight.
At one point, Trump looked out at the assembled party, scowling all, and said, in essence, he could cure cancer or land a rocket on the moon and none of these people would give him any credit because they hate him that much. All the camera had to do was pan to the sea of faces to make Trump’s point. He was right. Most Democrats refused even to look Trump’s Cabinet members in the eye.
Presidential addresses to Congress are always reminders that elections have consequences because the winner gets to frame, talk and control the narrative, and the losers have to sit on their hands or, in the case of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, fiddle with their phones.
Trump’s speech was, of course, often exaggerated and misleading, as is always the case.
He also glossed over innumerable inconvenient facts such as his love of tariffs…
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