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       #Post#: 5097--------------------------------------------------
       US President's State of the Union address
       By: agate Date: February 25, 2026, 12:37 am
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       Boycotted by a group of Democrats, President Trump's first State
       of the Union address of this term seemed to have been greeted by
       almost unanimous applause. You could glimpse a few Democrats
       sitting the occasion out with very somber expressions on their
       faces.
       The speech lasted an hour and 40 minutes, reportedly the longest
       such speech ever.
       Except that he wasn't speaking for a considerable amount of that
       time. He was summoning applause, inviting people to stand, and
       especially singling out human interest stories to highlight,
       even involving the First Lady in bestowing an honor on a
       100-year-old veteran.
       There were many of these stories, and some of the people being
       honored were in tears.
       Why so many of these this time? He has done this in the past but
       my guess is that there were fewer of them.
       For one thing, each time he pulled out another such example of
       heroism/patriotism/suffering under pressure or hardship, he got
       a break, a rest period. At his age, he may need rest breaks
       though the public hasn't been told as much.
       For another thing, he didn't say much or anything about (a)
       Greenland, (b) Gaza, (c) Ukraine, or (d) the problems with ICE's
       methods. It was as if these mammoth issues had vanished.
       Instead we got instance after instance of human-interest
       stories.  His account of each one was probably meant to show how
       caring and compassionate a person he really is--just in case
       anyone has been opining that lately (and in the past) he's been
       looking vindictive and bloodthirsty.
       In other words, we were fed an hour and 40 minutes of
       distraction designed to pump up the public's image of Donald
       Trump as the savior we've been waiting for.
       I'm not sure that a boycott of the speech by some Democrats was
       the best course. Most people viewing it on the screen would not
       have noticed a huge gap in the audience. We saw a unanimously
       appreciative crowd assembled there.
       It might be all too easy to take away the impression of
       unanimous support for the MAGA agenda and to forget that the
       President's approval ratings in polls lately have been at an
       all-time low.
       From Politico (February 23, 2026):
  HTML https://www.politico.com/news/2026/02/23/trump-state-of-the-union-polling-00793017
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