Donald Trump's first State of Union speech low on data; US president uses jingoism, emotion to tide over lack of facts

Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, and for a man considered by many to be the most polarising of US presidents, it was a change in strategy. Out went the personal attacks on rivals and critics, out went the conspiracy theories, and out went the negativity.

Speaking on the eve of the address, White House officials had said the president would strike a more “positive, bright and optimistic” note. Whether it checked all three of those boxes can be debated, but it definitely went towards striking a conciliatory tone.

Starting with the theme — ‘safe, strong and proud America’ — Trump seemed ready to look forward instead of dwelling on the past. Even when pandering to American jingoism, another Trump trope, he did so forward looking. “We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American Heart, American Hands, and American grit,” he said.

He even attempted to strike a conciliatory tone with his critics in the Democratic Party, saying they should set aside their differences and come together.

“Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve. Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family,” he said.

Facing approval ratings that are historically low — it’s above the 50 percent mark in only 12 out of 50 states within a year into his presidency — Trump has also been facing a gridlocked Congress. It was only through a last-minute compromise made by the Democrats that the US government shutdown ended earlier this month.

Given the many challenges, it was always going to be unlikely that Trump would go into his first ever State of the Union address all guns blazing, but he managed to keep his emotions in check and delivered a sedate, non-controversial, even boring speech.

Low on emotion, low on evidence

In his 12 months in office, Donald Trump has traditionally stuck to his tested recipe for being high on rhetoric but low on facts. From climate change to the economy to creating jobs for America international relations, Trump has made a string of claims which has routinely pressed fact-checkers into business. And it was no different here.

In his State of the Union address, Trump spoke for nearly 100 minutes but dealt with statistics in the first quarter alone. And even then, many of the statistics he quoted were questioned and debated. As pointed out by The Washington Post , Trump’s claim of having created 2.4 million new jobs was off by half a million, while his claim of enacting the biggest tax cut in American history was also false — it was the eighth largest — and was even smaller than two of Barack Obama’s tax cuts, the report said.

But with evidence on the ground not being kind to the Trump administration, the president fell back to his favourite trope: Rhetoric, emotion and jingoism. Speaking from the podium, he introduced a string of personalities who have contributed to the American Dream — or at least to Trump’s idea of the American Dream.

Speaking of small businesses, he introduced the owners of Staub Manufacturing, a small business from Ohio, which had a stellar year in 2017, and which, because of tax reforms, is expanding big. He also introduced one of Staub’s employees, Corey Adams, “an all American worker”, who supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. “Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his tax-cut raise into his new home and his two daughters’ education,” he said.

It would become a familiar idea, one that would be repeated throughout the evening. Trump would point to people in the audience who have championed the “American Dream”, those who lost family and friends, or those who were simply being patriotic, and urge everybody to congratulate them.

On a night when he was expected to spell out the achievements of his government, he would repeatedly highlight the extraordinary feats performed by people in the audience. And while it’s not to suggest these people didn’t deserve the adulation and ovation coming their way, their achievements aren’t the product of the Trump administration’s efforts. In choosing to laud them and their efforts, Trump was merely deflecting attention away from the fact that he himself had little to offer.

American heroes in attendance

There was Coast Guard officer Ashlee Leppert who was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. There was firefighter David Dahlberg. “David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires,” Trump said, urging the man be given a standing ovation.

Congressman Steve Scalise, who was shot at in Virginia in June last year, before making a recovery, was also present in the room for Trump’s address. As was Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that war veterans’ graves were not marked with flags on Veterans’ Day. “He decided to change that and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston, a job well done. Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans,” Trump said.

From Albuquerque in New Mexico came Ryan Holets, a 27-year-old police officer who saw a pregnant homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. “When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she didn’t know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby. In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: ‘You will do it — because you can’. He took out a picture of his wife, and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt,” Trump said.

Also present were army staff sergeant Justin Peck and his comrade chief petty officer Kenton Stacy, who were on a mission to clear buildings in Raqqa that Islamic State had rigged with explosives so that civilians could return to the city. “Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through two hours of emergency surgery. Kenton would have died if not for Justin’s selfless love for a fellow warrior,” Trump said.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier, parents of Otto, the University of Virginia student who was arrested in North Korea and accused of crimes against the State, were also in attendance and were also given a standing ovation.

Which is kind of the point. There were American heroes aplenty in the audience, and they deserved many plaudits and ovations. But it was courtesy a president who didn’t have actual data to reinforce his claims of a better America who praised and lauded them.