~ Tune in later tonight for part five of our seventy-ninth Tale for Our Time: The Quest of the Sacred Slipper by Sax Rohmer.
What do we know about tonight's State of the Union address?
The U.S. Hockey Team members - fresh off a gold medal win in Milan - are invited. The Supreme Court Justices? not so much...
REPORTER: The Supreme Court Justices who ruled against the tariffs, are they still invited to your State of the Union?@POTUS: "Yeah, they are invited — barely... Three are happily invited... Honestly, I couldn't care less if they come." 🤣 pic.twitter.com/p8ohkSzwpY
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 20, 2026
Meanwhile -
Multiple Democrats are planning to boycott Trump's upcoming State of the Union address by refusing to show up and attending a leftist rally at the National Mall instead.
So stunning and brave pic.twitter.com/Lqmfa3JxMF
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 23, 2026
The drama of who's there and who's square aside, some things never change. Indeed, Mark's observations in 2013 at the start of Obama's second term, stand the test of time:
Strange how the monarchical urge persists even in a republic two-and-a-third centuries old. Many commentators have pointed out that the modern State of the Union is in fairly obvious mimicry of the Speech from the Throne that precedes a new legislative session in British Commonwealth countries and continental monarchies, but this is to miss the key difference. When the Queen or her viceroy reads a Throne Speech in Westminster, Ottawa, or Canberra, it's usually the work of a government with a Parliamentary majority: In other words, the stuff she's announcing is actually going to happen. That's why, lest any enthusiasm for this or that legislative proposal be detected, the apolitical monarch overcompensates by reading everything in as flat and unexpressive a monotone as possible. Underneath the ancient rituals — the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod getting the door of the House of Commons slammed in his face three times — it's actually a very workmanlike affair.
The State of the Union is the opposite. The president gives a performance, extremely animatedly, head swiveling from left-side prompter to right-side prompter, continually urging action now: "Let's start right away. We can get this done. . . . We can fix this. . . . Now is the time to do it. Now is the time to get it done." And at the end of the speech, nothing gets done, and nothing gets fixed, and, after a few days' shadowboxing between admirers and detractors willing to pretend it's some sort of serious legislative agenda, every single word of it is forgotten until the next one.
In that sense, like Beyoncé lip-synching the National Anthem at the inauguration, the State of the Union embodies the decay of America's political institutions into a simulacrum of responsible government rather than the real thing, and a simulacrum ever more divorced from the real issues facing the country.
What are your thoughts on tonight's address? Let us know in the comment section below.