POLITICS: Trump’s rousing address puts Dems’ bunch of clowns to shame

In normal times, the run-up to a presidential address to Congress would be filled with reports and guesses about what the president would say.

There was plenty of that this week, but an inordinate amount of the focus in Washington was on how Democrats would react to Donald Trump.

How many would boycott? How would the members dress? Would they hoot and holler, or maybe march out in an organized pro-test?

In the end, it didn’t matter.

They were a sad, shrunken presence, especially after one of their main stooges, Rep. Al Green of Texas, got himself ejected early on by repeatedly interrupting.

He was the lucky one. Those Dems who stayed were like fish out of water, waving their silly little paddles and representing nothing except resistance to whatever Trump said or did.

Political wilderness

Calling them a clown show is an insult to clowns. They earned their trip to the political wilderness and Tuesday proved they are not yet ready to emerge as a constructive opposition party.

Meanwhile, the president they love to hate put on a show for the ages. No commander in chief in modern times has seized the reins of power with such gusto and delivered such immediate results. True to form, Trump wasn’t shy about saying so.

Watching him recount the success, especially on the border, and mix it with touching tributes to widows and families who lost loved ones to crime, I couldn’t help but think of the title of a Tom Wolfe novel, “A Man in Full.”

We are witnessing a president at the top of his game. Clear-eyed and confident about himself and his agenda, he put on a master class in presidential leadership in what was a speech for the ages.

Most times, a political address of 90 minutes would feel like an eternity. In the hands of Trump, it felt like a well-paced adventure through the dreams, hopes and tragedies of the people inhabiting the most important nation on Earth.

The Trump on that stage is not just the dominant figure in American life. In six short weeks, he has put our nation at the center of the world and made America important again.

To be sure, this is not how the lefty media will describe it. They came with their knives out and will nit and pick at every loose thread to call him a liar and worse. They will carve up everything he said and didn’t say.

No matter. The train has left the station and the dogs can bark all they want.

Reflecting what I regard as a different president from his first term, Trump acknowledged that the tariffs he’s imposing will cause some rough spots.

“Bear with me,” he said, an appeal that struck me as both proper and necessary because trade wars can be messy.

Sensible Zelensky

Similarly, he was gracious about the feud with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky because Zelensky, according to a message he sent Tuesday, seems to have come to his senses and realized that his country doesn’t have a prayer if it loses American support in its war with Russia.

Europe is a nice second level of support, but cannot match America’s might and power.

The entire episode is a clear example of Trump sticking to his guns despite the political fallout, with Dems, in a repeat of their Russia Russia Russia hoax, accusing him of selling out to Vladimir Putin.

It was a stupid idea that had no basis in fact. For one thing, Trump campaigned on ending the war and was not about to fall in line with Joe Biden’s policy, which Trump correctly called a formula for endless bloodshed without a winner.

For another, the deal Trump was offering Ukraine would have, if fully implemented, led to a cease-fire and perhaps a permanent peace.

Zelensky, egged on by Dems like Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, almost blew it by refusing to sign on to the terms. He now he says he will, and Trump seems prepared to move forward.

As for Democrats, there was one moment Tuesday where it seemed to me they especially were embarrassed. Trump recounted how Biden and Senate Dems insisted that new legislation was needed to shut the border.

But Trump, in a deadpan fashion noted, “It turns out all we needed was a new president.”

Half the room rose in thunderous applause.

The other half had no answer.

The other half had no answer. So far, their one accomplishment has been to keep all of their congressional members on the reservation.

That injects a bit of drama in House votes especially where the GOP margin is razor-thin.

But while having a period of being in the opposition is pretty much par for political life, rarely do we see an entire party desperately searching for relevance.

That’s where the Dems are. They are irrelevant because they stand for nothing except they are against everything Trump is for.

There’s no future in that and their sad performance Tuesday night proved they have learned nothing.