Trump?s Congress address analysed: How did this speech fool so many news outlets?

Many of Trump’s dependable media critics took a day off and praised hisaddress to Congress. The New York Times ran the headline, “Trump, in optimistic address, asks Congress to end trivial fights”. The Washington Post, “In first joint address to Congress, Trump wins high marks for steady, muscular tone”. Another Washington Post headlinedcalled his speech "surprisingly presidential". They were not alone.

These major US media outlets are rebranding themselves as crusaders in the war between Trump versus facts. While their Congress speech coverage wasn’t universally positive, they and others got fooledbecause for 60 consecutive minutes Trump generally managed to impersonate an adult. Also,perhaps theyresponded favourably because for once the presidentdidn't berate them.

The full speech is here. Reading it is suggested, because it's different than watching Trumpperform it.

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It’s impossible to address every lie in the speech because mostsentences containat least one, or arefounded on one.But let’s look closely at oneexcerpt. The beginning of the speech was praised, despite being dangerous and profoundly untrue. This is both representative of Trump’s overall modus operandi, and illustrative ofhow even non-supporters can fail to understand him:

“Tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our nation’s path toward civil rights and the work that still remains. Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centres and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.”

Trump here doesn’t celebrate Black culture or condemn acts ofracism ormurder, he is reminding everybody that he already has. Ingrainedin the paragraph is hisbelief that by definitionthe US is automatically against hate and evil, so as president, the ultimate embodiment of this virtuous country, Trump is automatically virtuous. He is praising himself, not supporting targeted minority groups.

For weeks he hasbeen asked to condemn the rise of racist attacks since the election.Here, hedevotes only two sentences to three groups. Apologies require admitting fault so he doesn’t do that, here or anywhere. It would be against his programming. He just utters the word “Black” and “Jewish” aloud without saying something horrible after. This bar is disgracefully, grotesquely low.

Yet even here he cannot bring himself to say “Muslim”. He does say“Muslim” twice in the hour-long speech but later, and only in the context of working with Muslim allies to fight Islamic State, or, in Trump's typical trite,overcompensatinglanguage, “Extinguish this vile enemy from our planet”. Several mosques have been burned in the US since the November 8election, but Trump only utters“Muslim”in the context of Muslim allies helping to kill other Muslims. This is the presidentextending an olive branch? He did not end his silence on these attacks, he continued it.

Some Indian media credited Trump with something that simply did not happen. NDTV ran the headline “President Donald Trump denounces killing of Indian engineer in state of union address”.No, Trumpdid not denounce the killing. He only alluded to it broadly, in part of one sentence,withaeuphemism and a dodge. He carefully avoidedexpanding on or conveying what happened, which is: Awhite Americanmurdered an innocent Indian manand shot two others because, as if this is a credible reason, he thought they were Iranian. A witness heardthe shooter say,"Get out of my country" before firing.

Later in the speechTrump singledout victims of otherattacks that fit his narrative, like the father whose son was, in Trump's words, "viciously murdered by an illegal immigrant gang member".Ask yourself, why does Trumpso brashly emphasize the attacker's background when they're not white, but remain silent about this aspect when the murdereris white?Trump never said "Indian" orthe nameSrinivas Kuchibhotla aloud.This is all crammed into the limp term, “the Kansas shooting”. Andagain, Trumpnever condemnedthis in his speech,he remindedus that he had already done so, when he had not.

Lest anyone think this issplitting hairs, remember, when Trump is genuinely moved his language is anything but subtle. To Trump Islamic State isn’t just the enemy, they’re “a network of lawless savages”, et cetera. He did not call itthe "Kansas multiple shooting", or the "Kansas murder". If Trump felt sincerely pained bya racist murder, he would have rushed to Twitter to say something like the US needs a “total and complete shutdown” on racist murderers. We would not be sitting here five days after the killing, parsing languagetrying to figure out what Trumpmeant.

There is enough data on Trump to know where he stands. The verdict was ina long time before he addressed Congress: The president isa dangerous bigot who will never change. Even if he didcondemn racism in this speech it would bemoot, because it assumes that there was something left to decide about the man.

Trump managed to fool people incapable of decoding both his warped worldview and his barely-veiled bigotry, even his critics, bycalmly readingfrom a teleprompter words he obviously didn’t write. When students accomplish this it’s called plagiarism,for himit's presidential.

Ifpresident of the United States requiresthis little, every single employee in the world deserves an enormous raise and promotion.

(WION)