I was inspired to write that headline as I was reading a review of Donald Trump's State Of The Union speech in the New York Times. A group of their political commentators were asked about various aspects of the speech, and under the subject heading of: "What Else Mattered," Binyamin Appelbaum responded:

When Roman emperors ran out of ideas, they promised bread and circuses. Trump's speech was full of circuses, including a lengthy celebration of the U.S. men's Olympic hockey team. But he's no Roman emperor: He made a point of reminding the American people that his administration is providing a lot less food to the poor (having "lifted" 2.4 million people off food stamps).

[Just to give credit where it is due....]

As for my reactions to the speech itself, the word that prominently popped into my mind last night was: "boring." Perhaps that's subjective, but even though Trump spoke for a very long time he never seemed to actually say much of anything. There were virtually no new policy ideas or calls for Congress to pass historic legislation. There was virtually nothing offered to American voters who think that we are indeed experiencing an affordability crisis. "No bread for you," was Trump's real message. Or, to be more accurate: "You are wrong, because I am convinced that your pantries are stuffed with bread that was virtually free, so what are you complaining about?" The gaslighting on the economy was truly off the charts. Affordability problems were, simultaneously, a "dirty, rotten lie" spread by devilish Democrats -- but also somehow a real problem that they had caused (not him!). The more astute viewer of the speech might have wondered how it could be both of those things, but consistency is a hobgoblin Trump's little mind simply doesn't even register.

What was especially notable were all the subjects Trump didn't even bother to mention: the Epstein files (because of course not), ICE, housing costs, health insurance subsidies that Republicans killed, education, infrastructure, the future of Gaza, Greenland, and how A.I. is about to change American life, just for starters (that's just a rather random list -- there were plenty of other unaddressed subjects to choose from as well).

Trump didn't even bother to mention that it was the fourth anniversary of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. He spent about 20 seconds, total, on the subject of Ukraine, as he barely mentioned the war in passing. He gave no real justification for his apparently-imminent invasion of Iran, other than lying about what he was truly looking for from them (and misspeaking in the middle of it). He said he was waiting for Iran to say "those secret words: We will never have a nuclear weapon." Previously, he had previewed this line by referring to them as "sacred words," which makes more sense. And Iran has indeed said those words multiple times -- the real question is whether they can be believed or not.

Trump's talk on Iran suffered from another moment of doublethink, as he bragged about totally destroying their nuclear weapons program a few months ago, but then he turned around and warned about their nuclear weapons program now, as his main reason for him to commit the United States to a war with them. But how can this be, if he obliterated it (as he promised everyone he had done, immediately afterwards)? It can't be obliterated and still a serious threat at the same time, right?

Donald Trump is not what you'd call an impressive orator, which he proved once again last night. He can get quite animated while speaking to a political rally of his supporters, but only on subjects which personally animate him (like, for instance, windmills). For other subjects, however, he has two methods of reading from his TelePrompTer, both of which (by design or not) show that Trump is obviously reading someone else's words and that he really doesn't care about them at all. It projects the opposite of authenticity. His first go-to way of dealing with the parts of a speech which he finds boring is to first sound astonished at every word (making it obvious he has never read them before), and then to raise his voice a bit at the very end of every sentence (which makes them all sound like questions, even though they aren't). He didn't do that last night, instead he used his second favorite method, which is to drone through the text in a monotone voice that is so low-key and quiet you can barely hear him. When he does this, he sounds like (to use a very modern metaphor) a schoolboy reading a book report, on a book he didn't read, that he "wrote" using A.I. In either case, Trump makes it clear he is reading someone else's words and is bored by the whole exercise.

Which was a shame last night, since Trump had a great opportunity to give a soaring speech designed to bring Americans together in celebration. Few politicians get such an easy task -- what would have been a lay-up for even a mediocre political speaker. But the parts of Trump's speech (at the very beginning and then again at the very end) where he spoke of the fact that this year is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence were the most downright boring parts of his whole two-hour gabfest. That was a real missed opportunity for him, but not really all that surprising.

I wasn't the only one who thought Trump's speech was pretty boring and ineffectual. Here are some quotes from Republicans to show that it wasn't even a partisan take on it either. For the first segment of the speech, Trump tried to focus on gaslighting everyone on how wonderful the economy was, and how wonderful tariffs were (they'll even, according to Trump, replace everyone's income taxes -- at some unspecified future date). But none of it was very convincing:

But some allies say he still missed the mark on his tariff message, a significant problem because polls continue to show voters are skeptical of broad-based levies and fear they will raise prices.

"He didn't sell it," said one former Trump official, granted anonymity to discuss their candid reaction. "All old talking points that voters don't believe. Nothing new to strengthen the argument."

. . .

"Just didn't move the needle on the economy," the person said. "That's the rub."

During this first part of the speech, Trump introduced the first of his "circuses," as he brought in the U.S. men's hockey team (who didn't actually get seats, they had to briefly troop in to the aisles way up in the gallery) so everyone could applaud them. But even this didn't impress all Republicans who were watching:

He will need to sharpen that message as he travels the country delivering affordability speeches, said GOP strategist Doug Heye.

"It's not about one speech. SOTU never moves the mark," Heye said. "Does Trump and the Cabinet take -- and maintain -- the show on the road? Or, in three weeks, is all we remember of the speech is the Olympic hockey team and some yelling because we've moved on to new Trump-created outrages du jour?"

I'd probably pick the latter, there, if I had to place a bet. But the funniest commentary came from a Wall Street Journal editor, who wasn't impressed by all the gaslighting (with fake or misleading "facts"):

Even Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Gerard Baker, hardly a left-wing firebrand, quipped that the address was so full of fictions he was beginning to doubt whether the USA men's hockey team actually won gold.

Here's his full social media post:

So far this speech has been so full of falsehoods and fictions that I'm now starting to wonder whether the USA men's hockey team did actually win the gold medal.

"Falsehoods and fictions" is an excellent way to describe Trump's speech.

In and amongst the lying and gaslighting, Trump did provide his "circuses," handing medals out to military heroes from World War II and the Korean War, as well as a few other medals here and there as crowd-pleasers. Our reality-television president knows how to sprinkle some showmanship throughout his speeches, and at least he wasn't handing medals out to people like Rush Limbaugh (which has to be Trump's most disgusting moment during a State Of The Union address, to date).

Trump even restrained himself from getting nasty over the Supreme Court smacking him down on tariffs, even though four of them (including three who had voted against Trump) were present for the speech.

He did not, however, restrain himself from saying plenty of nasty things about Democrats. As many have noted, about an hour in to the whole speech, Trump's subject matter and demeanor noticeably changed, since by that point he knew that all the people who casually tuned in to see the first 30 or 60 minutes of his speech would have decided to change the channel. So the second hour was a lot darker, since he figured only his own diehard supporters and political wonks (like me) would still be watching. So he pivoted -- hard -- from "everything is wonderful in America" to "everything is terrible in America."

This was when Trump started using phrases like "Somali pirates" and "the communist mayor of New York City" as he leaned in to demonizing immigrants in a big way and demonizing Democrats for not being sufficiently servile to him.

Overall, I have to agree with that unnamed "former Trump official" -- I don't think Trump moved the needle much last night at all. Anyone tuning in to hear Trump's big agenda for the next year would have been sorely disappointed. "Rest on my laurels" seems to be all he's got on his calendar. And I seriously doubt any voters who tuned in with an expectation to hear how Trump is going to pivot to concentrating fully on the economy, inflation, and getting prices down is going to be satisfied with Trump's speech either. About the best you can say for his speech is that (for once) he mostly kept to the script. He didn't fly off the handle and go off-script and start ranting and raving about all his personal bugaboos. For Trump, that is an accomplishment, so one has to assume that at least his speechwriters and other aides were breathing sighs of relief after seeing Trump speak last night.

But as far as providing a rallying cry for Republicans to go out there and campaign on for the midterms, the speech was pretty much a total failure. Trump refused to admit anything in America is wrong, and when forced to admit it he is still blaming Joe Biden for it all, 13 months into his term in office. That's wearing pretty thin, the more time goes by.

Democrats are still going to hammer Republicans on affordability throughout the midterm election campaign, and Republicans are still going to have not much of anything to offer in response. Trump offered up some reality-television moments during his speech -- his "circuses" -- but failed to offer up the "bread" part of that phrase at all. While the White House staff is likely relieved that Trump didn't do anything to make Republicans worse off, at the same time, he didn't offer up anything to make their re-election campaigns any easier. Instead, Trump's State Of The Union was a real snoozefest. And it has no chance of rallying his own base in any way (not to mention independent voters). That was my personal take on it, at least.

[Program Note: This was pretty long already, so I am going to write about the Democrats' various responses to the speech tomorrow, as a separate column.]

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant