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Trump's Speech 3-4-25: A Review and Some Observations [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-05
I watched the entire speech — on PBS. (Will it still be there for the next SOTU?) I could tell things were going to be surreal when David Brooks of all people actually seemed to be making sense during the pre-game show. In any case, I am indulging in a recap. A lot of what I expected came to pass, but there were also some things I wasn’t expecting.
Let me start by grading his performance. Trump gave one of his better showings. He avoided going off on random tangents (most of the time). He was energized — and should have been. This was a victory lap for him. He was able to celebrate his wins and taunt his enemies. He referenced at one point how well attempts to bring him to face the law had worked out, while smirking at Democrats.
(I’m listening to Carmina Burana while I write this — O Fortuna seems appropriate.)
He had a number of calculated moments, working the emotions with his carefully picked selection of heroes and victims whom he used to score points to hammer home his messages. Somebody compiled a big selection of factoids to back up his claims; he did a long riff on all the supposed errors in the Social Security system of people who are getting benefits at ages that are not credible. (Never mind that those errors are just the way the system was set up to flag missing or erroneous dates.)
He threw out huge helpings of red meat for the MAGA crowd, and the Republicans in the room were jumping up and down applauding like an aerobics class. (Mike Johnson sat behind him smirking with a shit-eating grin most of the evening, loving it.) Everything was either the best, the worst, or nobody had ever seen it before. The only president to come close to accomplishing as much as Trump has in just a few weeks was… Washington — the distant runner up.
Trump could not resist taunting the Democrats in the audience — not that anyone should have expected him not to do so. The Democrats frankly looked shell-shocked and resigned. Things were rough initially; Johnson had to gavel the chamber into submission when there were vocal protests coming from the Democratic side — drowned out by the Republicans shouting USA USA USA USA. Democrat Al Green was ejected from the chamber after he refused to stop heckling Trump. I think at least one other might have walked out — hard to say because they got so little camera time.
A number of the Democrats were holding little protest signs that looked like ping pong paddles. As an effective form of protest… it sucked IMHO. Stephen Colbert picked up on it too.
“The man barked out one appalling claim after another, but don’t you worry: Democrats are getting ready to fight back with their little paddles,” Colbert said before playing a clip of Democrats holding up “false” signs. “That is how you save democracy: by quietly dissenting. Or bidding on an antique tea set. It was hard to tell what was going on,” Colbert joked. “I’m just kidding that was very cool Democrats. In fact, I made my own sign,” he added. He then held up a placard that read: “Try Doing Something”.
Frankly, if Democrats had boycotted the audience, the empty seats would have been a stronger image and the lack of targets would have given Trump less to work with. They should all have walked out when Trump threw out his first taunts.This was a Trump rally from beginning to end. It demonstrated an ugly truth.
Politics is show business these days and the better performer wins. Style over substance, being entertaining, playing to the gut and bypassing the brain — it works. The session was reality TV and Trump was in his wheel house. I don’t know who scripted his performance and wrote his speech, but Trump did a masterful job executing it.
The fact that he is not bound by actual facts, truth, or shame is his super power. Eventually reality is going to catch up with him — and the rest of us — but it hasn’t happened yet and it’s not something we can count on soon enough, or that he won’t evade consequences yet again.
One more thing. If you watched this like someone who doesn’t really follow the news or is only getting news from the right wing news bubble, last night’s production delivered bigly as a message of winning. Taking everything Trump said at face value, how could anyone doubt he isn’t making America great again?
So, how did I do?
Here’s my predictions, and my take on how the actual speech went. Keep in mind that pretty much everything Trump claimed was a lie.
Trump will alternately gloat, congratulate himself, recite grievances, make threats, and make promises he can't/won't keep. Reality will not be on the program — this is going to be a marketing exercise and a display of dominance.
Nailed it — not that it was hard. It’s his schtick. Here’s the list of 10 predictions.
1) Boast about finally getting tough on the border - and maybe promise to finish the wall. Will he talk about maybe sending troops to invade Mexico to attack drug lords? Canada, to deal with all those geese that keep pooping on his golf courses?
He didn’t really go after Canada, except to talk about Fentanyl and tariffs. He stopped just short of openly saying he was going to send troops into Mexico to go after drug lords. He spent much of the speech hammering on immigrants — violent criminals, insane asylum leavings, even terrorist groups. And, he hammered Biden on his ‘open border policy’ while boasting how he had already gotten border crossings down to levels like no one has ever seen.
2) Boast about HUUUGE savings as Elon Musk guts agencies and decimates the Federal workforce. He might talk about how Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid are going to be better than ever thanks to making them more efficient and getting rid of the freeloaders who don't even show up to work.
He didn’t talk about Medicare or Medicaid, but the rest was spot on.He had a whole list of alleged waste and fraud that had been uncovered by Musk and DOGE, really ripped into Social Security, and claimed there were thousands of Federal workers who weren’t actually showing up to do their jobs. He went on to claim the savings from rooting all this out will pay for the big tax cuts that are coming and juice the economy.
3) Boast that we are finally ending the unfair trade practices that have let the world take advantage of us.
Trump really went on about this. Tariffs are Trump’s special sauce that will bring jobs back to America, lower prices, grow the economy, etc. etc. etc. — although there might be a little pain at first he barely admitted. He talked about how it will be great for farmers. He also touted his $5 million “Gold Card” path to citizenship that will bring in thousands of job creators. He whined about other countries that have been ripping us off for decades. He promised to keep ramping up trade wars if other countries try to fight back.
4) Promise that the 'peace process' in Ukraine will move forward - despite all the Russia Russia Russia plots against him and the obstruction by that loser guy Zelensky who was so rude to him and so ungrateful. And we'll get the minerals to pay us back for all our help. He'll also justify cutting off military aid.
Trump really didn’t get into much about Ukraine other than to talk about how Ukraine and Russian have lost so many people, and how he will be working to bring peace to the region. He read from Zelensky’s letter that arrived today in which Zelensky appeared to make concessions. And yes we’ll get the minerals. He didn’t mention he’s suspended military aid to Ukraine…and has stopped sharing intelligence. He wants the narrative to be all about him trying to bring peace to the region. (Also the Middle East.)
He praised Marco Rubio for doing such a great job as Secretary of State — and getting yes votes from the Democrats in the Senate for confirmation. He taunted Rubio about that, suggesting that maybe Democrats voting for him might make him suspect. Trump couldn’t resist making him squirm a little.
And Senate Democrats look like idiots for voting for any Trump nominees at this point. Heckuva job Chuck Schumer.
5) I wouldn't be surprised if he says we'll be pulling out of NATO if Europe doesn't give him something to appease him. (He's setting the stage to leave NATO anyway in my opinion. It's only a matter of time.)
He didn’t mention NATO at all that I recall, but did criticize Europe. Trump complained that Europe has done so little to support Ukraine compared to what the US has spent. (Lies). I suspect the push back since the Oval Office attack on Zelensky has had some effect.
6) He'll find ways to insult Democrats - see if he name checks Obama, Biden, Pelosi and others. Also, the Fake News Media.
Bingo, aside from the media. He kept insulting and taunting Democrats all the way through the speech. He repeatedly slammed Biden for not stopping immigration, not stopping drugs, not stopping crime, and having the worst economy ever. He made special mention of the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, with family members of those who died at the Kabul airport bombing being featured, along with the claim that Pakistan had just helped capture the mastermind behind the attack and that he was on his way to the U.S. to stand trial.
Biden is going to be the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong, along with the Democrats. Trump boasted that he’s busy reversing all of the bad policies Biden created.
He also went out of his way to call Senator Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas”.
7) He'll brag about ending DEI.
Hammering DEI was one of the big themes throughout the speech. He also went after “Woke” saying it was gone and we were all so much happier now. As for the trans issue he bragged about signing something that says there are only two genders, men and women. He said about children “You’re all perfect — exactly the way GOD made you .”
He had a guest — a woman who was outraged when her daughter’s school allowed her to switch her preferred pronouns without consulting her. (There was no sign of her daughter at the event.) Trump also talked about making it a crime to surgically mutilate children to change their gender — which doesn’t happen. There was also a guest — a young woman whose high school sports career was ended when a trans competitor hit her with a volley ball hard enough to cause a brain injury. (Let’s not talk about what happens to the brains of High School football players.) No more trans people competing against women in any school, or all Federal funds will be canceled.
8) He'll claim he's making America's military stronger by purging it of trans people, etc.
He didn’t specifically mention trans soldiers in the military IIRC, but given his stand on gender it’s pretty safe to assume anyone who isn’t straight is not going to have a viable career in the Trump military. He bragged about purging DEI from the military and that they could focus on being warriors now. (The military brass sitting in the audience seemed to be working hard to stay expressionless. All men as I recall...) Trump claimed military recruitment is way up now since January, and people are now proud to serve in the Armed Forces again. Pete Hegseth got a shout out.
9) He'll talk about how America is already greater now that he's back, and how we are respected again after the Biden years of disaster.
Well duh. This ran through the speech but it really ramped up at the end. Trump waxed long and loud how America was on the verge of a Golden Age like no one has ever seen. He bragged about his election win, his giant mandate, and his record approval levels. The economy is going to boom like we’ve never seen, the borders will be controlled, and our crime-ridden cities will see law and order restored as the police are empowered again. (He’s waiting to sign a bill mandating the death penalty for anyone who kills a cop.) He also promised justice will never be weaponized again, like Biden did to him, and he called out Pam Bondi and Kash Patel who will make sure of it.
Trump also went there. He spoke about how he was nearly assassinated in Butler, PA while speaking words of comfort to the family of the man who was killed in the attack. Trump went on talk about how God saved him.
(Pro tip: Do NOT allow yourself to be seated behind Trump when he appears at a rally.)
He threw out a lot of boiler plate verbiage about how great America was, how amazing the founding fathers were, how it was built into the greatest country in the world, etc. He was attempting to channel Ronald Reagan.
10) He’ll say something about the beautiful crypto he’ll be raiding the treasury to prop up while he profits.
Swing and a miss on that one. I suspect he doesn’t want to call too much attention to it because it IS an outright scam and raid on the Treasury.
Surprises
I admit I did not expect him to come right out and say America is taking back the Panama Canal. He called out Jimmy Carter for handing it over for just a dollar, citing the thousands of American lives lost building it and the huge amount of money spent on it. He’s determined to get it back.
Ditto for Greenland. Trump still wants it. He called on the people of Greenland to make it happen, promising they’ll be richer and stronger if they do. But, he also implied he was going to make it happen even if they they didn’t. He claimed America needs it for strategic reasons. It’s a big place. Also — ISIS terrorists?!?!!
I was surprised Trump didn’t bring up Canada as the 51st state. He only mentioned in connection with claims about fentanyl coming over the border and tariff trade wars.
I did not expect Trump to spend as much time demonizing Biden as he did. In theo-political terms, Biden is the Anti-Trump, the source of all evil. It’s not really surprising though given how Trump is driven by grievances. Biden is still the man who beat him in 2020 and Trump has convinced himself the election was stolen because he can’t stand to be a loser. Again, Trump and the GOP will scapegoat Biden and Democrats for all of the disasters that are already beginning to unfold.
I was impressed with how well Trump used his selected guests to make emotional appeals backing up his claims, lies, and talking points. Strategic use of people of color and women defused objections that he’s a racist and misogynist. He picked tragic stories that were hard to counter for their impact. It was brilliant staging. The only thing missing was kittens and puppies crying for their parents who had been eaten by illegal immigrants.
Not a Surprise
Trump put a lot of energy into demonizing immigrants, using eliminationist language. He was very emphatic about getting them out of the country and sealing the border. Given the things already coming out of the administration, can concentration camps be far behind? It’s a certainty that the abuses seen during his previous term will return and only be worse. It’s raw meat for the MAGA base and what he uses to keep them focused away from all the things he’s doing that will screw them.
Blatant hypocrisy was no surprise. Trump filled his speech with lies and bogus claims. One of his guests was a young boy who wants to be a police officer. (Trump arranged to make him an honorary member of the Secret Service during the speech.) Trump picked him out because he was a survivor of brain cancer who had been given 6 months to live — but here he was 5 years later. Trump then promised to wipe out child cancer by getting rid of the dangerous chemicals that were causing it, as well as whatever has caused a huge rise in autism.
He then went on the praise RFK Jr. as the man who would make it happen — never mind that Kennedy is presiding over the demolition of national health infrastructure and cutting edge research. (Tump jeered at Democrats for not applauding the Kennedy name.) Never mind that Trump also promised to do away with all the government regulations that, among things, regulate those chemicals in the first place.
Some Observations
I did not watch the press post-speech analysis. The mainstream media has proven itself incapable of dealing with Trump and the Republican Party.
Anyone who is hoping Republicans in Congress will do anything to rein Trump in is an idiot. They couldn’t jump high enough or clap loud enough for Trump. They are all in, all members of the cult. I heard Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko respond to a question last week, when asked if his Republican colleagues were in fear of their lives. He responded there may have been some of that driving them — but lately they seem to be getting into it.
As opposition leaders, Schumer and Jeffries are just not cutting it in a world where all the rules are out the window. The metaphor about bringing knives to gun fights is a cliche, but still to the point. Republicans have spent decades constructing an alternative reality, co-opting the press to transmit it, and using it to control the narrative while Democrats flail several moves behind, reacting not acting. They are behind the OODA Loop.
As pointed out above, in Donald Trump Republicans have found a charismatic leader who is skilled at manipulating people and playing on their emotions. (go here and read about leaders and followers) They have systematically worked for decades to undermine the institutions needed to maintain a functioning democracy. They know what they want, and they will do whatever it takes to get it.
Democrats need to bring effective leadership, comparable determination, and a message that will capture popular attention to the fight. When James Carville says Democrats should just lay low and allow Republicans to overreach themselves, he is ceding all initiative to Trump and the GOP. It typifies the “keeping their powder dry” mentality that nearly lost the Civil War until Lincoln found in Grant a general who would fight and keep fighting until he won.
The leaders the Democratic Party needs were not sitting in that chamber.
I have some suggestions which I will get to eventually, but I would like to remind everyone that we did not get here overnight. This has been decades in the making and if you really want to understand how we got to this point, there is some required reading that, in my opinion, needs to be read and acted on.
Explanation and lyrics here. for Carmina Burana — O Fortuna.
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