It was spectacle as survival strategy.

In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump did not bother to introduce a raft of new policies — unusual in a midterm election year with control of Congress on the line. He did not seem concerned with making the case that he gets it when it comes to the issue Americans are most worried about. "Affordability", he said, was part of a “dirty, rotten lie” perpetuated by the Democrats.

Instead, with the slashing style of a natural campaigner and the instincts of a onetime reality television producer, he spent the better part of two hours baiting the ranks of incensed Democrats in the chamber and endeavouring to define them to the electorate as "sick", unpatriotic and utterly out of step with the values of most Americans.

“These people are crazy, I’m telling you, they’re crazy,” Trump said at one point, while relaying the story of a young person who had been forced to undergo a gender transition. “Boy oh boy, we’re lucky we have a country with people like this — Democrats are destroying our country, but we’ve stopped it just in the nick of time.”

Going into the speech, Trump knew that he needed to use it to manoeuver out of a politically treacherous moment for himself and his party. A majority of Americans oppose how Trump is pursuing his anti-immigration agenda, and more than 70 per cent of them think his priorities are in the wrong place. His approval rating has plummeted to 41 per cent.

His solution was to wrap himself in the imagery of American heroism with staged asides throughout the speech while throwing the blame for every problem, from the security of elections to the state of the economy, back on his opponents.

In a number of cases, Democrats gave Trump the confrontations he sought.

Representative Al Green of Texas, who was ejected from the chamber last year for waving his cane at Trump, was once again removed after he held up a sign proclaiming “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES” — a reference to a racist video Trump recently shared on social media.

Representative Lauren Underwood of Illinois got up and walked out rather than “take another minute” of the speech. And Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a frequent target of Trump’s, was one of a handful who yelled at him.

“You’ve killed Americans!” she shouted as Trump talked about immigration enforcement.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the President shot back.

During the speech, Trump tried to shift the focus to his preferred topics. He offered little explanation about why he is threatening to launch more military strikes against Iran, saying that he would prefer to end the country’s nuclear programme through diplomacy, but that he would “never” allow Tehran to have a nuclear weapon — "Can’t let that happen".

Circling, always, back to Democrats, he called them cheaters and liars, assailing them for their Opposition to legislation that purports to address his unfounded claims of widespread election fraud.

As he recounted the stories of people who’d persevered through unimaginable tragedies or survived violence, Trump seemed attuned to whether or not Democrats were standing and applauding each person. He recounted the murder of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian woman who was stabbed to death on a train last year in graphic detail. Trump finished telling Zarutska’s story and turned immediately to the Democrats.

“How do you not stand?” Trump asked.

New York Times News Service