An Unexpected Reaction

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

President Trump gave a SOTU last night that was a call to celebrate the accomplishments of his administration and a call to action regarding Iran.  The accomplishments are legion.  But when you consider reaction and a story out of one pending Democrat candidate for the White House, I find myself mourning this morning.  Let’s examine.

“The Daybreak Insider” newsletter offers this description of what is describes as the most “poignant political moment:”

…he asked: “If you agree with this statement then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens not illegal aliens” (Rapid Response). Democrats—almost to a person—would not stand. Trump: “You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself” (Polaris). Speaker Johnson made it clear in an interview after the SOTU, stating they would be regretting that and “We’ll be using that video.” Guy Benson: “It’s an effectively-to-explicitly pro-illegal immigration party” (Benson).

Why are they, as Guy Benson said a “pro-illegal immigration party?”  They have gotten really stupid about it.  (Emphasis on “illegal.”  Legal immigration is just fine under Trump.)  Then there is this bit from an interview with Gavin Newsom:

“Never have and never will,” Newsom said on Sunday, asked whether he would take money from AIPAC.

So here is where we are.  Democrats would erase our nation’s borders, entirely, and they are no longer pro-Israel and therefore definitionally antisemitic.  Those are extreme and unreasonable stances that were unthinkable less than a decade ago.  They wrap themselves in sanctimony about these stances, claiming victimhood for immigrants into the U.S. and Gazans.  They seem unable to distinguish between losing and being victimized.  The erasure of such distinctions is a door to socialism.  Democratic Socialists do, in fact, seem to be taking over that party.  Something again unthinkable less than a decade ago.  (A backlash is mounting – here’s hoping)

At the bottom of this massive and unAmerican shift is one simple fact – Trump hatred.  A hatred so intense and deeply held that people are possessed with a single desire – to be “not Trump.”  There is no stance too extreme if it is not merely opposed to Trump but as far from Trump as possible.  They are not thinking, they are reacting – reason is subsumed by revulsion.

The already repugnant Democratic gubernatorial candidate in California, Katie Porter, summed  up the Democratic platform at that state’s Democratic convention this past weekend:

Former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, one of the Democratic candidates eyeing the Golden State governorship, held up a message that read “F— TRUMP” during the California Democratic Party’s 2026 state convention on Saturday.

“Yeah, that’s right, f— Trump,” she declared.

How, in any way, shape or form does that help the nation or the state?  There is no proposal to make anything better.  I guess it is a bit better than the extreme stances previously discussed because it is not a policy stance at all – it is just a curse.  But then when people are elected on a curse, are not we all therefore cursed?

And so my reaction to the SOTU this morning is to mourn.  It was not met with opposition – only unreasoned rejection because, to borrow a phrase from the previous Trump administration, “Orange man bad.”  Most people, even Christians, do not believe in a literal  Satan.  When hatred rules in this fashion, I find I have to.  If that is not cause for mourning, I don’t know what is.