January 30, 2018: Grading Disgustus, State of Disunion, Responsibility for Nothing

Tonight Caesar Disgustus will take to the dais and address a joint session of Congress. Once again the nation will sit transfixed before the 'tube' and witness the constitutionally mandated presidential report on the state of the union.

It wasn't always done this way. Until Wilson the presidential report was sent up to the hill and read by a clerk. Later in the century the speech was broadcast first on radio and then, in 1965 on television. Since then the annual event has become a time when the president can command nearly universal media attention and address the nation directly. Accordingly, the speech has become part report, part agenda, and mostly propaganda. Time and again the president stands before the nation assuring the assembled that, with some minor correction, the nation is sound.

It is a most boring spectacle.

But Disgustus now finds, having twitted away his presidency, that he stands with the lowest approval rating of any president one year in. Tonight he must appear 'presidential', which means sticking to the tel-prompter and not going off the rails.

Accordingly, it is rumored, he will give a 'presidential' speech, calling for national unity putting forth large proposals around which the nation will rally. But tRUMP is tRUMP and how long he can go without wandering off into braggadocio and endless self-praise remains to be seen. But he will take credit for the economy, that much is sure. Being the beneficiary of sound Democratic steps taken in the wake of the last Rescumlican disaster will, of course, not be mentioned. To hear Disgustus tell it, the recovery started last January.

Robert Reich, economist and former Secretary of Labor had this to say today on his Facebook post:

“In his State of the Union Address tonight, Trump will claim credit for the economy. Baloney. The trends he'll came credit for started as the economy recovered from the Great Recession. In fact, they’ve slowed under Trump:
1. The economy produced fewer new jobs in 2017 than in any year since 2010.
2. Hourly earnings grew by only 0.4 percent in 2017. That’s less than the1.8 percent growth in 2015 and 0.8 percent in 2016.
3. Blue-collar (production and non-supervisory) workers did even less well. Their wages grew only 0.17 percent in 2017 – the slowest wage growth for these workers in the past four years.
4. The earnings of workers at the federal minimum wage continued to decline, adjusted for inflation, as Trump and his enablers in Congress refused to raise it from $7.25 per hour, where it’s been since 2009.
5. The only big winners under Trump have been people who own lots of shares of stock. Stock values surged 25 percent in 2017. But most of these people were already rich. The richest 1 percent own 40 percent of all shares. The richest 10 percent own 80 percent. More than half of Americans have no shares of stock at all.
Spread the word.”

In the spring of 2009, President Obama declared that he 'owned' the recession. That is, he told us that he was taking responsibility. Disgustus will never take responsibility. While he will take credit for any good news, he will never take responsibility for the bad. After all, he gave himself a '10' for the government's response to the hurricanes that ravished the country, and as it stands tonight over a million are still without power on the island of Puerto Rico, and, by some estimates, over a thousand have died—mostly due to the lack of federal response to the crisis.

Disgustus will stand at the podium and beat his chest, tell the country and the world what a great job he is doing, but the numbers suggest otherwise. As Professor Reich reports job growth is down as is virtually every other indicator save the speculative craze on Wall Street, certain to create another 'bubble' and another collapse.

But Disgustus, our modern P.T. Barnum, our Carnival Barker, will put lipstick on the pig, taking credit for everything; responsibility for nothing.

On the economy tRUMP is once again more lucky than good. The effects of his savaging of regulations, his miserable tax policies, and his budget cuts have yet to be felt. We are only now coming under the first of his budgets.

Grade: Incomplete

Impeach and Imprison.