'This is not normal': How Trump’s 'bitter' SOTU resembled a 'sordid campaign rally'

05 March

On Tuesday night, March 4, President Donald Trump — with Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) standing behind him — gave what was, according to PBS, the longest address to joint session of Congress in U.S. history. The raucous, decidedly partisan speech lasted more than an hour and 40 minutes, with Trump bragging about his many executive orders, angrily railing against former President Joe Biden and attacking Democratic opponents as "radical-left lunatics."

Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was thrown out of the chamber for heckling the president. Other Democratic lawmakers in attendance, however, didn't heckle or boo, but help up signs criticizing Trump's policies.

The Guardian's David Smith offers some biting analysis of the speech in an article published on March 5, stressing that it sounded more like a "sordid campaign rally" than a State of the Union address.

"Rarely has the divide across the aisle been so bitter and glaring," Smith argues. "It was hard to believe that, when Trump first stood on this spot eight years ago, he repeatedly called for unity, proclaiming: 'We all bleed the same blood. We all salute the same great American flag. And we all are made by the same God.' There was none of that in 2025."

Smith adds, "These are the days of miracles and thunder, of owning the libs and perhaps owning chunks of the world too. Trump described his own presidency as the most successful in history, beating George Washington into second, and Biden's as the worst ever."

Trump's sense of grievance, Smith writes, was in evidence during the speech — and he painted himself as "poor unloved, unappreciated Donald."

"This was a Trump rally with a difference, putting all the tensions and fault lines and sickness of the American body politic on full display," Smith laments. "Half the chamber was made up of Democrats, forced to sit and have their noses rubbed in the dirt like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at last week's Oval Office shakedown. They looked grim, they looked glum, they looked as if they were reliving the 5 November election nightmare all over again."

Smith continues, "More than a dozen Democratic women wore pink in protest. When Trump entered, Democrat Melanie Stansbury held up a sign that said, 'This is NOT Normal,' until Republican Lance Gooden across the aisle, grabbed sign out of her hand and tossed it in the air."

David Smith's full article for The Guardian is available at this link.

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