The silence in Trump's raucous applause
What does Republican lawmakers' unanimous cheering of Trump's harmful positions say about the separation of powers? About the future?
If you had any concerns about whether Congress is doing its job to balance presidential power, the raucous Republican applause that greeted every specious, divisive or untrue thing Donald Trump said in his speech Tuesday should have confirmed them.
All I could hear was the silence: Silent accord from elected officials in the legislative branch.
Start with House Speaker Mike Johnson. However grandiose or wrongheaded the President’s remarks, Johnson responded positively. He stood, nodded, smiled, and exchanged approving glances with Vice President J.D. Vance. On occasion, to mirror Trump’s indignation, he shook his head.
Johnson called out Democrats, specifically Representative Al Green of Texas who was standing and voicing protest, for “engaging in continuing breach of decorum” and had the sergeant-at- arms escort him out.
Over decorum?
Where was it when Trump called his predecessor Joe Biden the worst president in U.S. history and blamed him for everything from the price of eggs (that would be bird flu) to presiding over hundreds of thousands of illegal border crossings a month. “Virtually all of them” in Trump’s words, were murderers, drug dealers, gang members, people from mental institutions and insane asylums.
But that’s not true. CNN reported there’s no evidence of countries releasing people from asylums and mental institutions into the U.S. It said even Trump’s presidential campaign couldn’t corroborate it. The Migration Policy Institute estimates from 2021 to 2024, Biden allowed more than 5.8 million immigrants into the U.S. legally and temporarily through various programs, and all were vetted first.
Johnson nodded, clapped and stood when Trump boasted of unilaterally freezing all federal hiring, regulations and foreign aid — moves that should have been subjected to votes in his own branch of government: Congress. Trump’s mockery of some programs funded drew sympathetic boos from the Republican side, Johnson shaking his head incredulously at the supposed waste. And when Trump derided funding to the African nation of Lesotho, claiming nobody had ever heard of the country, his followers disgustingly laughed along.
The president even boasted of signing 100 executive orders and taking more than 400 actions, “a record,” in his six weeks in office. He got nothing but cheers from the other branch.
Thankfully, the third branch — members of the Supreme Court — maintained their decorum, withholding any public reactions.
Speaker Johnson nodded and smiled along when Trump boasted, “I terminated the ridiculous Green New Scam, withdrew from the unfair Paris Climate Accord… withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization. And I also withdrew from the anti-American U.N. Human Rights Council.”
A huge standing ovation with sustained cheers greeted the President when he vowed to end “weaponized government, where for example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his opponent — like me.”
In fact, Trump was federally indicted by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland on election interference allegations. There’s no evidence Biden was involved. The cases were dropped when Trump was re-elected. So every lawmaker on that side of the aisle also believed his claims of election fraud were valid?
Did none among them find it ironic find it when Trump, having highlighted his partnership with Elon Musk, declared, “The days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over?”
And when, in the same week, the President called out “the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies” that he claimed favor one population over another, did no one see the irony in his move to cancel $400 million in federal grants and loans to Columbia University (my alma mater)? He was punishing Columbia for failing to protect Jewish students from antisemitism by allowing pro-Palestinian activism.
Trump’s boasts about his executive order to recognize only two sexes and his work to “protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools” were likewise applauded. He claimed school conspired to deceive a couple by “secretly socially transition(ing) their teen-age daughter.” The affirmation on the Republican side suggested no congressperson in that party has known a gender non-conforming person or, worse, that they would abandon them for this president’s approval.
One of the most ludicrous claims in the speech was that he, Trump, had stopped government censorship and brought back free speech back. To the contrary, he has banned the Associated Press (one of my early employers) from the Oval Office because it refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America as he decreed. And he’s sued other news media for reporting he didn’t like. Apparently Republican Congress members are just fine with those actions?
Even as this President made grandiose claims about his accomplishments, the stock market was taking a beating, mass layoffs were throwing longstanding government missions and workers into crisis, and his 25 % tariffs on cars from Canada and Mexico that he claimed would lead to construction of new auto plants in America were driving panic among U.S. automakers. So much so that Trump later put those tariffs on hold for a month.
But no matter the untruths, the smears or the reckless policy lurches — Republicans signaled accord. In that nearly two hour period, it seemed he could have insisted the world was flat and drawn standing ovations. Funny, until you remembered those independently elected representatives are meant to be gatekeepers of the executive branch. And they clearly fear crossing him out of concern for their own political futures.
It left me wondering how many of the policies he boasted of taking executive action on could eventually come before Congress for a vote, because Trump overplayed his hand. And if they do, is there any question how Republicans will vote?
Isn’t that how dictatorships start — in leaders’ lockstep acquiescence to even what they know to be wrong? Now it’s on us constituents to call out the raucous silence we’re hearing from them and what it suggests.
I’m a proud member of the Iowa Writer’s Collaborative. Click below for the full roster.
The perhaps mortal infection the Republic is suffering was on ugly display that night, but only more publicly than on other days. The ugly meanness and smallness of these people is stunning, but so is the matching blindness and affirmation of half of our citizens who see and hear as we do and also cheer wildly for the actions being taken. Trump and his MAGA followers, in and out of Congress are really a mirror showing us what “America” for all too many has become!
America has descended into a morass of selfish, lying, bullying where those in power gleefully echo lies and hate with toothy grins and cheers as long as it helps further their own personal power. We are in a dark place where the lies are held up as truth, decent folk are silenced, and the only thing that matters to our “leaders” is maintaining their power. Truth doesn’t matter, morality is unknown, and our country can be lost to dictatorship and they don’t care at all. Difficult to see how we can make it through 4 years of this horror.