It was a rather weird address for Trump, tonally — an ‘I’m still here’ speech of the sort that presidents usually deliver after an electoral shellacking.
Well, Donald Trump didn’t declare war on Venezuela, at least. After days of orchestrated public tension and drama, many expected him to announce some kind of military escalation against the Maduro regime tonight, in a speech for national television. Instead, Trump stood before a lectern for 20 minutes to deliver a stream-of-consciousness rant about how full-spectrum perfect the first eleven months of his second term have been. You can object to the new buzzword “affordability” all you like — I have no idea myself why it’s become politicized, other than because some want to deny the continuing bite of inflation — but Donald Trump invoked it himself tonight, as he proudly insisted to the nation that inflation was either a thing of the past, or soon to be whipped, whichever version of the story works better for you. (Trump tried both arguments simultaneously.)
It was a rather weird speech for Trump, tonally — an “I’m still here” speech of the sort that presidents usually deliver after an electoral shellacking, to emphasize their continuing relevance to the nation. And yet Trump has not completed so much as a full calendar year of his second term, making tonight’s timing feel strange. Other than that, Trump was his typical self, untypical only in that he failed to make any news tonight. (The closest Trump came was in announcing a “warrior dividend” for America’s soldiers, sailors, and airmen, a Christmas bonus of $1,776. Slightly cheesy symbolism, perhaps, but hardly the sort of thing that will raise a complaint among most Americans.)
Instead, Trump rattled off a laundry list of what he claimed to be his achievements, notable only insofar as it seemed like he was free-associating his train of thought, hopping the rails from one topic to another and back without any coherence. Curbing illegal aliens, bringing safety to D.C. streets, drug cartel strikes, Middle Eastern diplomacy — and these were only the actual accomplishments that Trump listed. Elsewhere he lapsed into his standard exaggerations and puffery, particularly on the economy, where his only possible move is to adopt a Frank Drebin–like “nothing to see here, folks, all is well” pose and hope his fans buy it enough to pipe down.
Truthfully, it wasn’t the worst delivery in the world — it merely felt curiously pointless. The big takeaway, perhaps, is that at the end of a year where Trump has sorely disappointed American voters on the key issue that got him elected — the economy — Trump feels the need to shore up the administration’s fading appeal. “See all the wonderful things I’ve done for you?” Trump asks as he hands America a holiday present, hoping we won’t notice until Christmas Day that the large box with the shiny wrapping paper is actually empty.