Once you get past the fact that NeverTrump "Republicans" aren't just nostalgic for a time when they were relevant and respected and accept that their hatred is more directed at themselves than at Trump, it becomes rather amusing to watch them spout their hateful nonsense.
President Trump “misused the State of the Union ritual in ways so radical as to call the ritual itself into question,” @davidfrum argues: https://t.co/XhD5W05Oxx
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) February 25, 2026
I used to get angry and feel betrayed by these folks. No longer. Every time they explode in anger at Trump and his supporters, all I see is self-loathing expressed as anger at the world. They have retreated into a world where they are the last of the truly virtuous, while knowing in their hearts that it is they who have gone off the rails.
That's how you get Bill Kristol praising communists, or David French justifying his support for politicians who promote abortion until birth. They are twisting themself up into knots as an expression of well-deserved self-loathing, masquerading their pain as anger at the evil Trump who made them compatriots with evil degenerates.
David Frum is one such NeverTrumper, and he is so upset that Donald Trump celebrated America and Americans that he wonders whether we should even have State of the Union speeches ever again.
States of the Union are rituals intended to demonstrate the unity of the nation: the president addressing two houses of Congress, backed by his Cabinet, speaking to the largest audience in the regularly scheduled year. Even the nonpartisan institutions of government—the Supreme Court and Joint Chiefs of Staff—attend in robes and uniforms, adding the symbolism of their respectful neutrality.
The ritual depends for its meaning, however, on certain standards of behavior. Something important broke when a member of the House shouted, “You lie!” at President Obama during his first joint-session speech in 2009. Last night, Trump repeatedly and persistently hurled much worse accusations at his political opponents—only days after he accused the six-justice majority of the Supreme Court that overturned his illegal tariffs of being “swayed by foreign interests.”
Through the first Trump term, many Americans consoled themselves that Trump’s outrageous antics would not last forever. He would depart in time, and the old ways could then reassert themselves. The best response to Trump, it was often said in those days, was to defend existing institutions. And the worst response was to respond in kind—because somebody had to protect the institutions that Trump seemed determined to wreck. As former First Lady Michelle Obama said, “When they go low, we go high.”
Yep. He honestly quoted Michelle Obama as if the Obama team were studiously bipartisan, the President of "If you like your plan you can keep it" was an honest and decent man, and he is deeply disappointed that Americans saw the alternative to Trump and decided that his PT Barnum antics were superior to a deranged, corrupt, degenerate Democratic Party should be nowhere near the White House.
"Americans" didn't "console themselves;" they elected Trump for a second term, and last night's speech showed us why. Democrats couldn't even console Iryna Zarutska's mother or applaud America's gold medal winners.
Joe Biden spent four years in office calling half of America dangers to democracy, and Frum claims that Trump is the divisive one. He invited Democrats to stand up for Americans over illegal aliens, and they petulantly refused to do so.
President Trump used his first State of the Union address to praise Americans and the impact of his presidency. A CBS News poll shows three out of four Americans who saw the speech approve of the president's message. @MajorCBS reports https://t.co/wTnfqABrOg pic.twitter.com/cGaqWVXq9X
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 31, 2018
CBS called the speech unifying; Frum sees this unity as darkness, because the unity is not with his hatred of the president.
But there comes a point when sad realities must be faced. The speech last night was empty and uselessly garrulous. Its length was its first declaration of disrespect for those obliged to sit through it. Trump’s name-calling of his predecessor and of the members of Congress in the chamber, his demands that legislators rise at his command, his strategic deployment of systematic untruth in service of those demands to rise and clap—put together, he misused the State of the Union ritual in ways so radical as to call the ritual itself into question. Are members of Congress really supposed to sit meekly and quietly while the president uses the rostrum of their chamber to abuse and insult them in the ugliest language? The president is present in Congress as a guest: That’s the reason for the famous language about the “high honor and distinct privilege” of welcoming him to speak. He has no right to be heard in person; it’s a courtesy.
Ah, for the good ol' days of Joe Biden, who loved all Americans equally.
America has so disappointed Frum that he wants the whole spectacle of the SOTU to end.
Given the intentional abuse of Congress’s time and hospitality last night, the next speaker, if there is a different next speaker, should consider very hard whether to extend another such invitation. The case for suffering Trump is that the tradition, if interrupted, may take a long time to return. A future Republican Congress will requite the next Democratic president the same way. But there’s also a risk of setting a precedent that anti-institutional Republicans get to smash things, which pro-institutional Democrats must then clean up. Maybe the only way to restore norms is by imposing some meaningful costs for breaking them. Next January, the next speaker could do everyone a favor with a letter that begins: “Dear Mr. President, the time has come for your State of the Union message. Please send it in writing in the enclosed envelope. Congress will give it all the attention it deserves. This is the method that was good enough for Rutherford B. Hayes, and, Mr. Trump, it is more than good enough for you.”
Frum, who backed Democrats' lawfare, spread hoaxes to destroy a duly elected President of the United States, and whose anger is clearly aimed at his fellow Americans and not so much Donald Trump, is betraying his own self-loathing as well.
How could he look at Democrats, who constantly talk about their own hatred of America (decolonization, decarceration, open borders, "nobody is illegal on stolen land") and see them as "institutionalists" isn't a question to me anymore.
At a fundamental level, he must know better. He just loathes Trump so much that he has become loathsome. And that loathing appears, at least to me, extends to himself.
Nobody subjects themselves to such public humiliation without some measure of self-hatred.
Either that, or he is just a typical Canadian. Democrats listening to Canadians tell us about American politics is on brand for Democrats, so it could be that...
Whatever the answer to why Frum and the NeverTrumpers have a tantrum every time they think about Trump, it's hard to get worked up anymore. It's actually kind of funny.
They spend all their time explaining why they are willing to blow up every law and norm to restore law and norms. Lawfare is necessary because Trump doesn't respect the law; hoaxes are necessary because Trump is a liar; supporting Biden is necessary because Trump is deranged.
It's almost a stand-up act, seen in the right way.
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