How are you surviving the newspocalypse? I’ve been sitting in front of cable news for so long that I think I’m starting to photosynthesize. First the impeachment trial, then Brexit, then Iowa caucus night, then the other Iowa caucus night, and finally the State of the Union. Tuesday was Trump’s fourth address to a joint session of Congress and the spectacle was as ever a ghastly affront to a properly functioning republic, with our legislators reduced to animatronic North Korean supplicants. Most pundits spent the speech on Twitter needily cracking jokes about the attendees’ facial expressions. But to the extent I was paying attention, here are a few takeaways.

First, Trump is now in goaltending mode. He has an election around the corner, and that means the stench of “American carnage” must give way to the perfume of “American comeback.” Thus did he spend the first quarter of his speech listing off positive economic data and defending his tax and regulatory cuts (while also pledging to protect Social Security and Medicare). The ghosts of the recession have been exorcised, Trump essentially said, a message that could put him at odds with some right-wing intellectuals who think more radical action is needed when it comes to the economy. But radicalism has a shelf life in the White House. It rarely lasts longer than three years. And Trump’s advisors are no doubt looking at the polls, which find the public broadly pleased with the economy and their quality of life.

Indeed, on substance, this was the closest thing to a conventional Republican speech Trump has ever given. Yet even so far as that goes, you still can’t dismiss his capacity to surprise. “A president who ran on a law-and-order platform was later persuaded by Kim Kardashian to approve criminal justice reform” is not a thing I ever thought I’d type, but under Trump we do nothing if not find new ways to be stranger than fiction. The president last night not only boasted about signing the First Step Act—once a hobby horse of libertarian think tanks—he linked prisoners getting a second chance to economic vitality. Other interesting ideas were sprinkled throughout. Senator Tim Scott got a shoutout for his work on opportunity zones. Senator John Barrasso was commended for putting together an infrastructure bill.

Yet the lawmaker most present in Trump’s speech, even though he wasn’t ever mentioned by name or even in the chamber, was Bernie Sanders. Trump has denounced socialism before, but his condemnation of it last night, fresh off of Sanders’ second (or first?)-place finish in Iowa, felt especially pointed. And then over to Juan Guaido, Venezuela’s leader in exile, waving stoically at the crowd. It was almost a dare: stare into the dark abyss of “democratic” socialism if you can. If Sanders is Democrats’ nominee, which right now appears more likely than not, you can bet that’s going to be the theme of Trump’s campaign, even if the president himself isn’t much of a small-government budget cutter. “Socialism destroys nations,” Trump declared. “But always remember: freedom unifies the soul.” I don’t know what that means, but I’m getting it embroidered on a pillow for one of my trad friends.

Still, State of the Unions aren’t primarily about policy or campaign oneupsmanship or even self-aggrandizing deceptions (though there were plenty of those, as Daniel Larison points out); they’re about pageantry. And on that, Lord, did the man ever deliver. Last night was a veritable telethon of therapeutic YouTube camp, and by the time Sergeant First Class Townsend Williams emerged to reunite with his unsuspecting wife, you were frantically calling various hotlines trying to pledge your life’s savings. Trump can still put on a show, I’ll give him that. And of course, there was the requisite trolling of the left, with Rush Limbaugh not only seated next to the first lady but awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the middle of the speech. It seems almost pointless to gripe about this, given how thoroughly that honor has been devalued, though Trump’s ability to show utter indifference to his critics’ sensitivities is still something to behold.

And then it was over to the Democrats and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (the other Mean Girls were unavailable). You can’t succeed at the State of the Union response; you can only survive it. And I thought Whitmer did, even if Democrats seem to have forced her to broadcast from a poorly lit church basement. She was more Bob McDonnell in 2010 than Chuck and Nancy in 2019, touting Democrats’ kitchen-table achievements at the state level. Problem was, this wasn’t the Democratic response most people will remember. Whitmer had already been eclipsed by Nancy Pelosi, who made a point of tearing up Trump’s speech after he’d finished with it. She herself was responding to when Trump had refused to shake her hand, but it was still a bad look. The White House promptly lunged:

Speaker Pelosi just ripped up:

One of our last surviving Tuskegee Airmen.

The survival of a child born at 21 weeks.

The mourning families of Rocky Jones and Kayla Mueller.

A service member's reunion with his family.

That's her legacy.

— The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) February 5, 2020

Meanwhile we still don’t have the full Iowa caucus results. The only Boomer having a better week than Trump is Andy Reid.