Based on the article “The State of our Union Is Not Strong” from the National Review.

Since the beginning of the State of the Union, it has been a common ritual that typically repeats itself year after year: a few dumb jokes from the president to start things off (this year’s was to 2016 presidential candidates and offering them his advice for how to win the Iowa caucus), a laundry list of policies the president hoped to get done in his remaining year in office (from closing Gitmo to making college affordable for all), a recap of past accomplishments as president (from passing the Affordable Care Act, to job growth, to having Osama Bin Laden shot in the head), a running list of generic American archetypes represented in the room by real-life people invited to attend, carefully crafted applause lines that were meant to elicit standing ovations from one side of the aisle but not the other, callbacks to previous campaign slogans, moon shots , and a rousing call for America to do better, and finally a mention that the state of the union is great!

In my opinion, people don’t see the state of the Union address as what it really is, a political ploy for the president to tell the people what he “plans” on doing and how well he has actually done. Although all SOTU are composed of the same things, we have to realize that with all speeches that happen annually, there is going to be similarities between them no matter how different they claim to be. This is important because if we don’t see things as they are and get mad about the little things, then we won’t see the bigger picture. We get mad because “Obama said the exact same thing as everyone else.” Well that may be true, but shouldn’t we be more concerned about the false information he is feeding us and the things he’s been saying he’ll do since the Iowa caucuses that somehow haven’t managed to be done, such as cutting deficits by three-quarters, America’s economy is not in decline, the affordable care act is all about you, recklessness on Wall Street caused the financial crisis, we’ve protected an open internet, and no nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that’s the path to ruin.