Trump Just Repeated the Mistake That Cost Democrats the Election

In 2024, voters rejected the party that told them everything was fine. Last night, Trump tried to run the same playbook.

In the postmortem on Trump’s State of the Union, we see a dead man walking. What we got last night, in the longest State of the Union literally of all time, was an exercise in self-congratulation that tells you everything you need to know about Trump: He’s not taking your pain seriously. He doesn’t get it. And he’s not willing to learn.

And in revealing that, Trump is falling right into a trap of his own making.

We’ve seen it before. Let’s go back to 2024. The Democrats are running a campaign based entirely on the message: “Everything’s fine!”

Everything was not fine.

I say this with all necessary humility, but Democrats wrongly tried to convince voters to deny their own economic reality. Into disbelieving what they were feeling every single day. Republicans capitalized on that disconnect and took the House, the Senate, and the White House.

History Repeats

Now, Trump is making the same mistake Democrats did in 2024. I’ve said it before. This guy is Wile E. Coyote, and last night we watched him string a piano up over his own head.

We got an hour and forty eight minutes of Trump touting his many successes, ushering in the “Golden Age,” and bragging about a country that’s “bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before.”

It’s not.

The economic pain that swept Republicans into power hasn’t subsided; it’s gotten worse. Trump’s tariffs have raised the cost of everything from food, to electronics, to clothing. The OBBB gutted healthcare and food assistance. They’re both more expensive now. Inflation is virtually the same as it was when Biden left office.

Nothing has meaningfully changed since Republicans took office (other than, of course, Trump’s net worth), and he is asking you not to believe what you can see with your own eyes.

Good Luck With That

This puts the GOP in a tough position, and I don’t just mean on their arthritic knees, kowtowing to the Godking.

Now, they’ve got to hit the campaign trail with a platform built on lies and look completely out of touch. Or, they can acknowledge reality, distance themselves from Trump, and risk the wrath of his Truth Social account. Not great options on either front.

The midterms are looming, and they’re shaping up to be a referendum on voters’ lived experience versus convenient political spin.

There’s a Pattern Here

Voters are smarter than they’re being given credit for. The administration is dumber. They’re incapable of learning from their own mistakes. Asking people to disbelieve what they’ve seen with their own eyes backfired spectacularly in Minneapolis after last month’s shootings. The administration fed us lies, and the people went out in the streets and pushed them out of the city.

They’re going to do the same thing now.

Trump is walking into the exact same trap that caught Democrats with their pants down two years ago. It didn’t have to be this way. Trump could’ve simply kept his populist promises, but he’s made it clear he’s not interested in helping anyone but himself.

If the Democrats’ losing slogan was “everything’s fine,” then the Republicans’ may as well be, “Trump first, America last.”