I didn’t hear Trump either, but I did hear an interview on my way home with Sharon Mazer.

Sharon Mazer, is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at AUT who has written several books and articles about professional wrestling in the US. Tomorrow she will be speaking at a symposium on Popular Story Telling, hosted by AUT.
Her theme is Populist performance research: from Professional Wrestling to Donald Trump.
She argues that Trump's role in the Battle of the Billionaires WWF match, back in 2007 that helped propel him to win the 2016 US election. She joins us to explain why.

The timing of this interview (in sync with his SOTU) also couldn't have been more perfect.

Al, you were quite right about the sitting Dems and the applauding Reps (as in Reptile). But some of the gems (if you turned the sound off) were Nancy Pelosi chewing her gums during the speech, Rick Perry staying awake, stoic-faced Pence, terminally tired Steny Hoyer, and that huge fat Gooper whose name I don't know nor want to. (Shame on me for body shaming, eh).

There were a few positive aspects to the speech, which was, as expected, overly-replete with self-congratulatory applause.

1. Promises to improve VA services for veterans. This has been a disgrace since at least Viet Nam.

2. Promises to see drastic cuts in pharmaceutical prices.

3. Compromise on immigration, which actually is more reasonable than the Dems' plan.

Good portion of the time was spent on the growing economy, rising wages, gain of 200,000 manufacturing jobs.

A promise of $1.5B infrastructure spending was open-ended as to permit privativation of at least some of the work--maybe a lot of it.

But the Trumpeter lauded the resurgence of "wonderful clean coal" and energy independence (naturally entailing further environmental raping).

He lauded responsible government made possible by cutting regulation. This is an oxymoron, as all here are aware.

His billionaire cabinet along with Ben Pyramid Carson were beaming appropriately, including bankster Mnuchin who owes his freedom to the Camel.

farce. I don't think I've watched one since Obummer, a that might only have been being in a bar somewhere it was turned on. It is all lies and sickening beyond my endurance to watch all the kiss asses nod and smile. And then there are the real hypocrites who sit there and frown who are almost more disgusting, to me at least, because that's all a big show as well.

I saw an article in Common Dreams this morning about the Kennedy rebuttal - the photo I saw may have been one on file but if not, not only did he not mention climate once but he was standing in front of an American muscle car? How tone deaf can one get? But hey, he's a Kennedy, why not use some of that notoriety to try in a desperate attempt to bring all the sheep back into their tent. He will save us! Good God.

Nothing on our neoliberal, regime changing, hegemonistic foreign policy. It is extremely disingenuous because, for one, you cannot create the domestic changes he touts without a dramatic change in how we allocate our resources. And, let's face it, we will never have our hearts and minds aligned towards domestic equity until we believe in true respect for the sanctity of foreign borders and policy. If you are one of those who believes our military supports democracy worldwide, I suggest you look into that further. And the only mention about the border fence is to state that Trump promised Mexico would pay for it????? Not a word about what a terrible, useless plan it is. We need true progressives leading our nation - from the local to the federal level. Disappointed but not surprised. He called out Russia for interfering in our elections but not the Democratic party for destroying his own candidacy.

it is disingenuous to talk about middle class America

I know you said more after that but I stopped it here for a reason - there is none.

Politicians time and time again talk about "middle class". People in this country like to view themselves as rich, middle class, (another new class of working class), and poor.

"We need to help the middle class."

Bullshit.

The middle class is almost dead. Those in the middle class are doing A-OK. Those that are rich are doing great. Everyone else is not.

Put another way: Too many people continue to view themselves as middle class because of the positive connotation of that but also the negative connotation of not being that. Again, if you're not middle class, you are either the rich or poor. Well, here in America you can't be one of the poors and if you live in a trailer you can't call yourself rich so... middle class you stay.

When I was in high school (late 2000's), there was a kid I used to talk to. He told me how tough it was for his family because they lost (supposedly) $700,000 in the stock market from the recession. He then told me he was just like me - me a person living in a trailer. He was a narcissistic, coddled child who thought he had it "tough". The dad is a doctor so obviously he had it tough.

Now, I'm off topic and ranting on an old life. The point is, with 50% of Americans making $30,000 or less, the middle class is this mirage we hold onto. It's a feel-good drug that many use to avoid the stark realization that they are poor.

P.S. I'm not ignoring the rest of what you said about imperialism and the like. I just have noticed this continued framing of middle class in this country (not saying that you automatically were or anything).

P.P.S. I wrote an entry here on how progressive is a dead term, co-opted and mangled beyond recognition. My internal politics haven't changed but it seems the descriptors I use have to change. Of course there isn't a mad rush to co-opt socialist so I can stick with that one. The thing is that you could have a beautiful marriage of anti-imperialist sentiment and domestic revival. Close bases, end wars, reallocate funds to rebuilding America. Easy one-two (would also include prosecution and jailing of war criminals but yeah).