This Tuesday, our most divisive night
Except for Election Day itself, the most partisan night in America will take place Tuesday evening, when President Trump steps to the rostrum in the House of Representatives for the annual State of the Union address.
When Woodrow Wilson began the tradition of appearing live before Congress in 1913 – ending the practice of written State of the Union messages started by Thomas Jefferson – he intended to signal the beginning of a collaborative process between the executive and legislative branches of the government.
On his inaugural visit to a joint session of Congress, Wilson said he wanted the lawmakers to appreciate the fact that the president was “not a mere department of the government hailing Congress from some isolated island of jealous power.” Instead, he alerted congressmen to the fact that the president was “a human being trying to cooperate with other human beings in a common service.”
Oh, how we’ve strayed. For many years now, State of Union night has been a snake pit of partisan wrangling, punctuated by the irritating practice of multiple standing ovations for the president by members of his own party, whether Democrat or Republican.
The number of times the president’s speech is interrupted by rapturous applause has become a measure of its success or failure.
Ronald Reagan began the practice of inviting guests to sit alongside the First Lady in the House balcony, in order to highlight some point the chief executive was attempting to make.
Props, more or less, in the continuing propaganda war that passes for the normal arc of American politics in the age of the 24-hour news cycle, the guests are now presidential State of the Union traditions.
(Reagan’s first guest was Lenny Skutnik, a 28-year-old government worker who had rescued an airline crash victim from the icy waters of the Potomac River days earlier. Thus, the president honored “the spirit of American heroism”, a subtle reminder, one supposes, that under Reagan’s watch America was “back” from the bleak and cowardly Jimmy Carter years.
In 2016, President Obama introduced a “Dreamer” to the national television audience at his State of the Union address, crowning his argument on behalf of those brought here, albeit illegally, as small children by Mexican or Central American parents.
Last year, Donald Trump had relatives of murder victims in the House balcony, highlighting his stand for a border wall.
Recently, lawmakers got into the act. This year, New Jersey Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman has invited Victorina Morales to attend the festivities. Morales, born in Guatemala, was recently terminated after years of housecleaning duties at the president’s private golf club in Westchester County, N.Y. Thus, Rep. Coleman means to call attention to the president’s abject hypocrisy when it comes to undocumented workers.
Otherwise on Tuesday, the nation’s eyes will be riveted on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who will be seated above and over Donald Trump’s shoulder.
What’s that look on Nancy’s face? Is it a smirk, a tired indifference? Is it a flash of anger or an air of steady disdain bordering on contempt?
Perhaps the Speaker will mask her emotions in gauzy delight in having the president she bested in the fight over the government shutdown in HER House of Representatives, wrested from Republican grip after two years of unrivaled political ineptitude.
You can almost be sure that the San Francisco sachem will instruct her charges to be courteous to the president. The last thing she should want is a Democratic replay of Republican Joe Wilson’s shout out to Barack Obama in 2009, “You’re a liar”, in the midst of presidential remarks to Congress on health care legislation.
The State of the Union address is a sad spectacle, a body blow to common sense and political comity.
It wasn’t always this way. In his 1941 State of the Union address, Franklin Roosevelt unveiled the “four freedoms”, political and moral trumpet blasts in the midst of World War II and the dark, desperate struggle against fascism and tyranny.
Twenty years on, in an address to Congress, John Kennedy urged lawmakers to underwrite putting an American on “the moon and bringing him safely to the earth” before “this decade is out.”
This is not to say political strife was packed away in 1941 or 1961, or during any of the speeches that were given prior to the time the State of the Union went completely haywire.
President Wilson was certainly not above political mischief. Returning to the White House after his first appearance before Congress, the president commented, concerning his great showman rival, Teddy Roosevelt, “I have put one over on Teddy and am totally happy.”
The State of the Union speech in its present form requires a major overhaul. First, return it to the afternoon event it traditionally was until 1965. Second, have the president enter the House chamber via the door nearest the rostrum; the long walk down the center aisle is a step too far for any clear-headed fan of free government. Third, lose the guests in the gallery. Fourth, scrap the applause-o-meter.
Better yet, forget it all together. What was good enough for Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan, not to mention Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, should be good enough for Donald Trump. Mr President, send ’em a letter.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.