State of the Union: Trump celebrates women in 2019 address

Members of Congress, many of them women dressed in white, cheer after President Donald Trump acknowledges them. Picture: AP

He really is the most peculiar president.

How else to explain Trump’s decision to celebrate, in his second State of the Union, the huge numbers of American women now in the workforce?

Yes, of course that’s a great thing, which maybe explained why a group of Democrats — most of them women, and most of them dressed in white, like so many brides of Congress — stood and cheered ... no, scrap that, why they stood up and roared, in numbers too big to ignore.

“You weren’t supposed to do that,” Trump cried, before adding: “Don’t sit yet, you’re going to like this … one century after Congress (gave) women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in Congress than at any time for before!”

“Oh yeah!” they cheered.

“USA! USA! USA!”

“That’s great!” Trump said, above the din. “And congratulations!”

But hang on … why are there so many women in Congress right now?

Could it be that Trump is responsible?

Indeed it could: women stood in record numbers at the midterms. Most were Democrats, determined to defy him.

Not only did they stand, they won.

They took seats from his side, so yes, Trump absolutely is responsible for the record number of women in Congress.

The first Muslim, the first Native American … they’re all there, after campaigning against Trump’s policies, and his ilk.

Trump surely understands that, and so, maybe, good on him, having a joke at his own expense.

He does occasionally do that.

On the other hand, maybe we’re misunderestimating the blonde billionaire. Maybe he was mocking those women for what he’d surely see as the hypocrisy of their position: on the one hand, they’re all about female victimisation.

On the other hand, American women have never been so powerful.

So sure, let’s hear them roar!

The State of the Union has long been as much about the props as the propaganda.

Besides the women in white, the Democrats had immigration advocates, and sexual assault survivors in the room.

The first lady, Melania, by contrast, came black-clad, and in the company of small children — none of them related — who get bullied for bearing the name Trump.

Solidarity!

The Republicans also invited a Holocaust survivor (liberating those camps is still America’s greatest hour) and special guest Buzz Aldrin, who not only planted a US flag on the moon, he apparently got it back, to wear as a tie.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin sports a patriotic tie. Picture: Getty Images

Trump personally invited a former federal inmate, Alice Johnson, telling the audience how he’d “heard through friends” — that would be Kim and Kanye, the Karashians-West — about how she was serving a life sentence for drug offence, despite being a first-time offender.

Alice wasn’t wearing white.

She was crying real tears.

Alice Johnson, left, was, special guest of President Trump, with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Picture: Getty Images

As Trump entered the room, Democrat speaker, Nancy Pelosi made a face like she was cleaning her teeth with her tongue.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi listens as US President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address. Picture: AFP

In a break with tradition, he did not give her time to introduce him.

He began by saying that he wanted Congress to govern “not for Democrats, not for Republicans, but as one nation” (not for One Nation, that’s a Queensland thing.)

Of his own presidency, he said: “I pledged a new approach” ... and hey, fact check?

True, and following through!

Which isn’t to say that Trump didn’t tell porkies, of course he did, the biggliest of which was the idea that the US has the “hottest economy “ in the world, which is true only if you’re not counting China, or India, which are half the world, and then some.

On the other hand, he said, the US was for the first time in 65 years, an exporter of energy. This is, to borrow a Trumpian, huge.

Just huge.

He spoke of the America of the old, which stood for freedom, and for science, for emancipation, and suffrage.

That America had no walls, but let’s step over that for a moment, because Trump made some entirely correct remarks about the hypocrisy of many wealthy Democrats, who oppose the “transparent barrier” he proposes.

“Where walls go up, illegal crossings go way, way down,” he said, pointing out that “illegal immigrants” (some would be asylum seekers) used to cross in huge numbers at the border in San Diego, which now has a wall.

For Californian Democrats — like, say, Pelosi — to object to more of the same, for others? A bit rich, one might think.