The Official TGP Response to the State of the Union

It sucked. The end.

Adrienne (TGP Founder and Creative Director): D'Anne, you have to write more than that. 

D’Anne (Senior Copywriter and Associate Creative Director): Okay. How about this: “It sucked. Trump is garbage.”

Adrienne: D’Anne…

D’Anne: There is more truth in those two sentences than Trump’s entire speech.

Adrienne. True, lol. But it’s not a sufficient blog post. 

D’Anne: I can add more words of the four letter variety.

Adrienne: Do I need to ask Holly to write this instead?

Holly (Creative Strategist): Write about Trump’s SOTU? No thank you.

Adrienne: Ok, D’Anne, it’s all you.

D’Anne: Okay, how about this: “It sucked. Trump is garbage. My favorite part was when the ladies yelled at him.”

Adrienne: ADD DETAIL.

D’Anne: Okay, fine. How is this?

The State of the Union speech sucked. Trump is garbage. But whether you watched the SOTU or not, you already know that.

Ideally, every Democrat would have ghosted this farce of a speech entirely, but at least Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib yelled, “You have killed Americans!” at Trump before they walked out. Trump later responded on Truth Social by saying both women were mentally unwell and not smart. [Not linking to this. People can find it on their own if they want.] Rep. Al Green, a Texas Democrat, held up a hand-lettered sign reading, “Black people aren’t apes,” referencing an extremely racist video that Trump posted online that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Green was “escorted out” as Republicans clapped.

The rest of the Democrats attending largely sat quietly and respectfully, living in a fantasy world where everything is normal and the president is owed any degree of respect. Not that Trump showed Democrats any respect in return.

During his speech, Trump denigrated Democrats as a whole. “These people are crazy, I’m telling you,” he said, pointing at the Democratic side of the chamber where no one was standing and clapping for his anti-immigrant vitriol. ‘“Democrats are destroying our country.” 

By “destroying our country” Trump means that Democrats are not cheering on Trump’s mass deportation plan because to support this plan, you must first agree with Trump and the Republicans that immigrants are subhuman and that suburban moms and veteran hospital nurses deserve to be gunned down in the street for opposing the violent takeover of American cities and the abuse of their neighbors by ICE. The fact is, Trump is extremely unpopular in part because people, by and large, do not like having masked men carrying guns and snatching up people in their neighborhoods, nor do they like elementary school students inhaling pepper spray.

By and large, the SOTU was nearly two hours of the most powerful and delusional man in the world telling lies and exhibiting how absolutely unfit he is to be President. But that is nothing new. Being an unfit liar is Trump’s whole vibe. A vibe that is laundered by mainstream media in order to make people think that this country is not being run by the weakest and most petulant man on earth. 

But it is. There is no doubt that electing this man twice will prove to be one of the most damaging things the United States could have possibly done to itself. Alas.

It’s going to take a long time to repair the harm done by Trump and his Republican co-conspirators. And we’re barely out of the first year of his second term. Granted, some of the harm can never be repaired. We can’t give the people killed by ICE their lives back, for example. 

But we also can’t throw our hands up and let fascists stay in power forever. 

And this is the part where I’m supposed to urge you, dear reader, to run for office. Where I tell you that if you don’t run, somebody who believes Trump’s bullshit will. Somebody who thinks that “abolish ICE” is too controversial a stance will. Somebody who thinks the biggest problem facing public schools is transgender athletes will. Somebody who thinks we need to stick to “kitchen table issues” and stay away from the “identity politics” of marginalized groups will.

It’s like Shirley Chisholm said: “If you’re not given a seat at the table, grab a folding chair and give it to an orca whale to smash into the side of a yacht.”

Adrienne: The quote is, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” 

D’Anne: Noted.

It’s like Shirley Chisholm said: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” 

And, yeah, lugging around a folding chair is pretty cumbersome. But it’s better than standing by and watching other people make decisions about your life. 

There’s a sign by the locker room entrance at the gym I go to that says, “Only you can prevent theft.” And every time I see it, I think, “Only me? That’s an awful lot of responsibility.” 

But, of course, I understand what that sign really means. It means that you’re responsible for your own stuff. If you don’t guard what’s important to you, someone is going to take it. 

And I’ll be damned if that doesn’t apply to every single right you or I have. Don’t leave life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the hands of people who want to take it away.

Only you can prevent such theft. Run. For your life, for your kids’ lives, for your neighbor’s lives. Run.

TGP loves working with candidates because we love supporting good and brave people. Let’s talk.