Much of what President Trump said in his address to Congress “was inflammatory, radical, and dangerous,” Susan B. Glasser writes. “But it was also familiar, his by-now-standard mix of braggadocio and self-pity, partisan bile and patently absurd lies. It turns out that even the most unhinged of Presidential speeches can seem kind of boring if it goes on long enough.

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Much of what President Trump said in his address to Congress “was inflammatory, radical, and dangerous,” Susan B. Glasser writes. “But it was also familiar, his by-now-standard mix of braggadocio and self-pity, partisan bile and patently absurd lies. It turns out that even the most unhinged of Presidential speeches can seem kind of boring if it goes on long enough.
“There’s no doubt that Trump, in just six weeks, has compiled a most unusual list of accomplishments to boast about—much of it a result of allowing the world’s richest man to take a chainsaw to the federal government, cutting hundreds of thousands of federal jobs and unilaterally shutting down federal programs and contracts worth billions of dollars in defiance of Congress,” she continues. “But you wouldn’t have known it from hearing Trump wind his way through nearly a hundred minutes of mostly standard-issue Fox News culture-war talking points and alpha-male American exceptionalism.”
Glasser writes about the performative distraction of Trump’s speech—which failed to erase the sense of chaos he’s induced in the world.

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