the state of This Union

      Maybe there’ll be a good movie on Apple TV. Well, really doesn’t matter if it’s any good.

      We finished “Poker Face” on Peacock, but maybe there’s something else we could find there. Really doesn’t matter what.

      And of course there’s always Netflix. It must have something reasonably viewable.

      Then again, I could read my book. It’s a family saga, about the Gangulis, by Jhumpa Lahiri. Could easily kill a couple of hours with that.

      Or I could do some cooking or some cleaning of the house or attempt some decluttering or go for a walk or get on the exercise bike if it’s raining or … do pretty much anything.

      Anything instead of watching tonight’s State of the Union address.

      I know, of course, it’s important and I know I should be informed and I know it’s essential to understand what we’re up against. How can we fight fascism if we don’t know exactly what we’re fighting? And it used to be an event I, and many of us, would never miss, a tangible example of American democracy in action.

      But I cannot watch it tonight and I will not watch it.

      I was angry with LBJ and I loathed Nixon and sneered at W but I could at least watch their State of the Union speeches—annoyed, all the time; angry, regularly. But I somehow could bear it. They were, somehow, within the realms of tolerability.

      Not this guy, though. With Trump, just hearing that self-satisfied voice, seeing that bloated, smirking buffoon, almost makes me viscerally ill. And I’d wager I’m not the only one.

      Of course, it’s the agenda and what he’s already done and what he could do—the blatant racism and the rampant illegality and ICE and corruption and the pardons and tariffs and Greenland and threats of war and so much more.  

      But it’s more than that.

      There’s the constant, brazen vulgarity, the preening and sneering; the total lack of coherence and inability to speak more than word salad; the incessant, obvious lying. How his very presence demeans the office of the American presidency, how his every utterance debases our nation.

      No grace, no dignity, and 77 million Americans voted for this?

      I know we are told all the time to try to understand. But I cannot understand.

      Which means I am simply not willing to endure another hour and a half of being confronted by our terrible failure. I will not sit on the couch and watch Republicans mindlessly applauding this travesty and take note of that toadying pipsqueak Mike Johnson rising in approval behind him.

      So, I’ll take a pass tonight. I’ll be with the dozen-or-so Democrats, as of this writing, who have announced that they’re skipping the State of the Union. Some of them will attend something called the “People’s State of the Union,” at the National Mall.

      Others may just be watching, like me, whatever’s on Netflix. Anything is better than watching him.