A Grotesque Display

The Democratic Party normalized Trump with their applause.

The Democratic Party normalized Trump with their applause.

Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress tonight was just the sickening display of faux patriotism and hatred you’d expect. Mixed in with predictable platitudes about uniting the country and an unending reverence for the US military was a strain of anger and hatred.

And the Democrats stood and applauded for a good amount of it.

This included when Trump highlighted the families of the victims of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and used the widow of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens as militaristic grief porn— the two most disgusting moments of the night.

For the former, Trump hailed the creation of VOICE, the Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement office. The office is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

As Benny Koval put it, this was disturbingly similar to the way other marginalized groups have been spoken about in the past.

Yet a good amount of the Democratic Party stood and cheered for this grotesquery, honoring the cheap and xenophobic tactic with hand clapping glee.

Trump used Owens’ widow as a prop for applause not once, not twice, but three times. The second time, clapping and cheering lasted for over a minute as the cameras stayed focused on Carryn Owens’ tear streaked face. It was revolting political theater, and, of course, the Democrats stood and applauded with rictus grins on their plastic faces.

This is all awful and the type of empty, soulless politicking we should expect from the Democratic Party— because they cheered him coming in. They should never have even done that.

Nothing that has happened in the last five weeks deserves even the level of normalization that Democratic applause should give. If this is the “resistance” party, we’re well and truly fucked.

Update: Of course the media was on board too— including Van Jones.

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