State of the Union Unscrambled

My fellow Americans, I’d like to thank you for toughing out the excessive number of reruns on television tonight by watching this speech.  As you may have heard, the state of the union is “stronger.”  What this means is that it’s not un-strong, and is steadily working it’s way towards a level of strength that is greater than it’s current, embarrassingly weak level.

Tonight I’ll be covering some of the ideas I’ve tossed around in the last few weeks, but in less detail and primarily through the use of soaring metaphors.   I’ll do my best to inspire you with insipid fanfare and unnecessary standing ovations, but it won’t be easy.  Our patience will be tested again and again by an opposition party that does not want to applaud as frequently as we do.  They will grumpily avoid eye contact with you, the American people, as they refuse to clap for ideas as simple as “providing decent educational opportunities” and “having the right to vote.”  

Tonight I stand before you ready to declare my full-throated support for a slew of ideas that shouldn’t be controversial but are.  Ideas like raising the minimum wage, allowing law-abiding undocumented workers a chance to one day get the green card we automatically offer any old Cuban citizen that floats up in a raft, and no longer paying for war in the Middle East in a roundabout attempt to lower prices at the pump.  Ideas like getting reeeeaaaallllly close to trying to offering universal health care and believing in the basic facts of science.  I know these are challenging concepts, but I’m committed to working through your idiocy because I have no other choice.  Frustratingly, my belief in everybodys’ right to vote even extends to people like you.

This speech will also be efficiently designed to mask some of my more controversial ideas.  I’ll use climate science as a lead-in to discussing my support for natural gas drilling, or “fracking” as the anti-flammable-water lobby calls it.  I’ll give you the impression that, in supporting this so-called clean energy, you are giving a great gift to the environment.  A gift that I will not mention (for your own good!) includes harmful chemicals seeping into your drinking water. Instead of focusing on that downer, I will focus on being heralded as a hero for my brave belief in the basic facts of science and nobody will be any the wiser.  My corporate friends will tip their hats to me but you won’t see that because they are shadowy and only meet with me behind closed doors.

Once I’ve covered these unpopular issues, I’ll make sure to distract you again with something moving.  I’ll stock the audience with as many examples of the triumph of the human spirit as possible, ensuring that not a single American will turn off their television set without feeling awed by our nation’s seemingly impossible greatness.  We are, after all, a nation that brings water and crackers to an 102 year-old would-be voter as she patiently waits in line for six hours; a line she is only standing in because of the color of her skin.  A nation that honors a bereaved mother by letting her sit next to the first lady instead of passing the gun control legislation that might have saved her daughter’s life.  A nation that sits a heroic policeman next to a complete stranger who has evidently not been warned that she will be on camera.  We don’t take the easy way out or search for easy answers, and that’s what makes us great.

All of this, of course, will seem magical when compared to what follows - a “response” speech by the opposition party that is never not bungled.  They will ask a rising star in the party to speak, only to embarrass them with a public access-style set-up and false assurances that they are prepared.  You will wonder how this person could have ever been elected to office considering their glaring inability to act natural while giving a speech.  Thus, the opposition party will destroy the presidential hopes of their one charismatic member/token minority, and we will all feel smug for it.

America, the tone of our voice will be significantly more important than any words we say tonight, but if we can get at least one Twitter hashtag out into the world, we’ll know we’ve done our jobs.  Good night and [something religious here].