Righteous Mission
As President Donald Trump stepped up to the podium, ready to deliver his first State of the Union address to the country, the message was loud and clear. America is great, our country is strong because our people are strong and our president is more detached from reality than we thought to believe.
“Let us begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our union is strong because our people are strong.” President Trump stated as he basked in the applause of his fellow republicans.
America, immigration and more jobs seemed to be all that was on the mind of our president. From addressing the government shutdown to celebrating his one-year in office the speech continued to consist of self-praise, numerous standing ovations and a lack of direction.
“Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected, and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of America's soul, and the steel in America's spine.”
Yet, throughout his speech Trump continued to claim victory over topics he himself seemed unsure of. Take his stance on Obamacare for example. He believes to have claimed “victory” over it, stating “We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare -- the individual mandate is now gone.” When in actuality Maggie Dore from CBS News, claims that the penalty of $695 is still in effect 2018 and dies in 2019. The Affordable Care Act is still in effect and according to the Kaiser Health tracking poll 50%-42% of Americans are now in favor of it, and only 28% of Americans believe Trump should continue to appeal it. This issue seemed to clearly bother president Trump, seeing that he only spoke upon it once and gave it very little airtime.
“African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded.”
President Trump wasn’t wrong about this, matter of fact, this was one of the very few truths he spoke upon. As of December of last year the black unemployment rate was at it’s lowest of 6.8 percent, but this percentage is a culmination of years and years of progress, so to give the president that much credit in a span of a year would be unjustifiable, no matter who holds the title.
As for the topic of immigration, our president continues to believe every immigrant is a terrorist and that family-based migration is the process in which, according to president Trump “a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.” Trump claims that family-based migration and the diversity visa lottery are the reasons for terrorist attacks, yet he couldn’t be more wrong.
Over 50,000 immigrants are granted visas and more and more families are coming to America. Studies done by economist Francine D. Blau and Christopher Mackie, have shown that family-based migration have brought in more second and third generation immigrants then ever before, thus resulting in a boost to economy and has sparked growth. So, to fact check the president there really is no true connection between terrorist and the thousands of immigrants who are coming into this country everyday.
According to Fox News, NBC, CBS and ABC 40.4 million people tuned in. As always president Trump delivered. He was able to have people tune in, listen and pay attention to what he had to say. Yes, it didn’t beat Obamas first State of the Union address, but in the long haul that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the country is tuning in and paying attention to what our commander in chief has to say. Thus, leaving the people with unanswered questions and even more inaccurate truths.