President Donald Trump could not hide the effect of the stunning rebuke he received last week from a group of Supreme Court judges in the tariffs case while delivering his latest State of the Union address.
Image: Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP
I purposely missed US President Donald Trump’s live State of the Union address this week and chose instead to rely on summaries, snippets and experts’ analyses. And, I was glad I did when I learned that it was the longest speech of its kind – breaking a record held by Bill Clinton by 20 minutes.
I’m sure Trump wouldn’t care if I’d listened in or not to his “roaring” economy speech full of the usual showmanship. When he spoke for all those 108 minutes, he was aiming at his voting base since the mid-term general elections are around the corner. Which makes sense, but it’s very sad to see a former world superpower becoming so inward-looking.
But let’s look on the bright side, fellow South Africans. With the White House Bully’s focus fixed on domestic issues, problematic nations like ours managed to escape. Even when he glanced beyond his “strongest borders” he focused on bigger fish like Iran.
Indirectly, however, we were still targeted with this unstable president still threatening to swing his global tariffs wrecking ball some more, now using different legislation after being “disappointed” by a bench of Supreme Court judges last week.
The historic judgment against Trump marks a pivotal moment for peace and democracy in the US and beyond. It’s proof that some vital checks and balances are still intact in that beleaguered democracy preparing to celebrate its 250th anniversary otherwise known as the US Semiquincentennial, or the Bisesquicentennial, Sestercentennial or the Quarter Millennium.
Trump came face to face for the first time with the tough judges who struck down his tariffs when he delivered his long speech. And all he could do was give them those nasty stares. He really got trumped this time.
There was the usual bravado, the usual “illegal aliens” barbs and insults, misinformation and disinformation, but some members of the opposition stood up to him telling him to his face “you’re a liar”. So, in short, if you missed the speech by the leader of the world’s number one economy, you didn’t miss much.
Which reminds me of a couple of similar speeches delivered closer to home that were better to miss than listen to. However, the budget speeches and documents like the IDPs are what we should go through with a fine-tooth comb.