2016

The Top 20 Tweets From President Obama’s Last State of the Union Address

By Daniel Ford

I'm sickened by the political discourse in this country.

Ted Cruz sanctimoniously lobbying to bomb the Middle East into a parking lot? Bernie Sanders shouting at Wall Street to get off his lawn? Donald Trump transforming his campaign events into de facto Klan rallies? Marco Rubio pontificating in an empty suit? Chris Christie???!!! These are the Presidential turkeys we get? We need more orators and fewer class clowns.

I suppose you could argue we deserve it. Our short attention spans, reality television sensibilities, and willful disengagement from the political process make us easy prey for these windbags. And I'm not naive enough to think political debate in this country has ever been high minded. For every Lincoln, there's an Andrew Johnson; for every FDR, there's a Herbert Hoover. Thomas Jefferson essentially ran the first smear campaign (with the help of his lap dogs James Madison and James Monroe) and besmirched the reputation of John Adams, his longtime friend, to get elected and whine about nearly every issue for eight years.

However, President Obama, during his final State of the Union address, demonstrated that there might be a different path our politicians might take. I know he's unburdened by re-election and his legislative agenda is already a dead letter in Congress, but he touched on themes that should resonant with the electorate this campaign season. I’m not saying I agreed with everything he said or was pleased with some of the issues that were excluded (particularly gun violence), but the highest office demands the highest level of oratory and that’s what we were treated to last night.

These are the four questions the President explored:

Shouldn't all these political attack ads instead focus on the answers to these questions? Aren’t these questions the crux of what we're facing as a nation? Shouldn't our discussions around kitchen tables or on social media revolve around how to live up to President Obama's rousing call to citizenship?

Sadly, more attention will likely be given to Kim Davis' hair, Paul Ryan possibly having a stroke next to Joe Biden, and the Joint Chiefs setting a world record for holding in the largest collective fart.

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. We can do better. I don't know if I still have faith that we will, but last night’s oratory makes me believe it's still possible.

Speaking of pontificating, that's enough out of me. Here are some tweets from last night that are both substantive and silly.

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