The president’s State of the Union speech is a familiar, ceremonial fixture. It’s a constitutionally-mandated, annual report to Congress. Calvin Coolidge took it live on radio in 1923, and Harry Truman brought it to television in 1947. LBJ moved it to prime time in 1965 and ever since, it’s been game-on for presidents who can use the mega spotlight for self-serving political interests—from cherry-picking data to honoring and highlighting special guests.
The president has both a live Congressional audience and millions of TV viewer-voters. He has applause lines for his side of the aisle and his side of the electorate. We’re used to it.
What we shouldn’t be inured to, however, is the de facto political performance act that this event has devolved into. It is enabled by off-putting optics, resulting from a reaction shot-obsessed media. We see whack-a-mole partisans hopping up and down for deferential ovations, while the opposition party sits uncomfortably taciturn, eye-rolling and text-checking.
But this isn’t, of course, just about “What-a-difference-a-president-makes” Trump, MAGA shout-outs and GOPster-minion ovations over “the golden age of America.” This is about a consequential American moment that has morphed into an indecorous, politically punctuated spectacle unworthy of a serious democracy.
The SOTU speech needs a reset if it is to seen as anything but democracy-debasing, political show business. It wouldn’t be hard. Keep the president in a tight frame and do a little furniture rearrangement behind him. No need to show the Speaker and the VP, especially when they are of different parties. Awkward would be an upgrade. And no routine reaction shots—whether of uncomfortable Supreme Court Justices or role-playing partisans of either party. If it doesn’t make for good TV, too bad. Save the optics for NFL and hurricane coverage.
BTW, the U.S. WOMEN’S Gold Medal-Winning Hockey Team declined an invitation from President Trump to attend his SOTU speech. Logistics was a problem. The bigger problem, left unquoted but not unnoted, is that Trump doesn’t deserve patriotic Olympic puppets.