Four Women and a SOTU

 

Behind President Biden at the State of the Union Address this evening were Vice-President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, two women on a stage that for so long never had us. In the audience were Republican Representatives Margorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, who behaved in a way that made me ashamed for them. They were without dignity; they were partisan hecklers at a solemn event. They were there to be seen and we saw them. 

I am so ashamed for them that we saw them, because I don't know that they know how to be ashamed for themselves. Maybe they could be taught shame, as if they were still toddlers and the experience of being seen by others in public was still new. 

They tried to start a "Build the Wall" chant. It's an affront to sense. FYI: the wall was always stupid. It's a material, not a legal barrier, that can be easily thwarted by such things as "over, under, around, and through. " Anything that might costs millions if not billions to maintain across a thousand miles and can still be overcome by cheap ladders, by pick and shovel, by a flotilla of fucking inner tubes on the water  at the edges, that is made of steel but has feet of clay and gets toppled by a hard rain, is a stupid tribal fetish, not an immigration solution. 

Sticking with it is appalling dopiness. It's just sad. 

Lauren Boebert tried to heckle President Biden over the mention of veterans when he was speaking of the ongoing medical concerns of veterans who were explosed to burn pits and have experienced disabilities, cancer, and sometimes death. She tried to say he put 13 soldiers in flag-draped coffins. That was ISIS--violent Islamic extremists. But I don't think for an instant she interjected because she's opposed to war at all, or even understands that Trump negotiated our Afghanistan withdrawal and Biden only executed it because it was his job. She did it because she needs attention. And is awful. 

Marjorie Taylor Green is in part incensed that the culture war over mandates has been done away with because conservatives are being deprived of a chew rag they thought still had more flavor. 

The state of the union is actually pretty good in some ways. It needs all of us to unfuck the fucked-up parts, though--like making sure there are more Democrats in office, and not people like Manchin. (Unless this yacht-life galoot decides to turn over a new leaf in a minute--but even so, not like him.) I appreciate we are restoring support of NATO and unwavering in our support of brave Ukraine. I understand Biden's clarification that "defund the police" is not Democratic policy, because it isn't. I appreciate that he brought up the rights of trans kids. 

I know why he mentioned reproduction health rights and didn't enumerate abortion, because it is in SCOTUS and state hands. And I hate that. 

Anyway, MTG and Bobo eclipsed anything Kim Reynolds had to say about the SOTU. They did it without class and without understanding of anything. They turned their back on the SOTU speech but they also are turning their back on the actual state of the union because it's clear they don't care what's going on in the world so much as whether cameras are focusing on them. They should never be, themselves, where Harris and Pelosi are, The differences in knowledge and dignity are too obvious.