Was any light shed on the issues that got him elected over the Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024, but which may have turned into susceptibilities ahead of the midterms? Probably not as tough immigration actions were the main reason the country may have been put off by its President, and he hardly spoke about them nor mentioned at least two Americans killed in ICE action even at the risk of alienating further those who are not in his MAGA fan base
With the midterm elections coming up, the stakes around this year’s State of the Union address by the US President Donald Trump were higher considering the hold of the Republicans on the legislature is wafer thin. Little wonder then that it sounded more like the beginning of an election campaign than a statement on the state of the USA or what the President proposed to do about his promise to lower the cost of living to alleviate the difficulties of the less well off.
The President’s wings may have been clipped by the Supreme Court verdict on the illegality of the tariffs with which he had overturned global trade with the US, but all he said was that the verdict was “unfortunate”, a far more polite term than those he had used outside. And yet the tariffs are the revenue he wants to take for his “America First” with the vague promise that income tax could be done away with.
Was any light shed on the issues that got him elected over the Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024, but which may have turned into susceptibilities ahead of the midterms? Probably not as tough immigration actions were the main reason the country may have been put off by its President, and he hardly spoke about them nor mentioned at least two Americans killed in ICE action even at the risk of alienating further those who are not in his MAGA fan base.
Of course, he had the overriding, if tiringly repeated message of an America doing well in its new golden age with claims that may not stand up to fact checking but which will be sweet music to the conservative Republican base. He said he had inherited a crisis-ridden US with a stagnant economy, record inflation, open borders and rampant crime at home and wars and chaos around the world, but he did not say what he would like to do about it.
Has anything changed is the question though Mr Trump avows that he seeks dialogue with Iran even as his forces have assumed a most aggressive posture with two aircraft carriers in waters near the Middle East and a dozen of America’s most advanced F-22 Raptor jets to Israel. And Mr Trump thinks that America is winning so much that they don’t know what to do about it.
