Donald Trump’s record-breaking 100-minute speech on Tuesday to a rowdy joint session of Congress made for a curious and cringeworthy spectacle — and I am not even referring to the (largely predictable) braggadocio and baloney coming from the man standing on the speaker’s rostrum.
No, it was the comportment of many of the Democrats in the chamber that really made me wince. Many turned up wielding placards reading things like “THAT’S A LIE”, “MUSK STEALS” and “THIS IS NOT NORMAL”, which they held up like stroppy student protesters at various points during Trump’s address.
Many Democratic congressmen and women had also co-ordinated their outfits in a series of different colours — black “to meet the sombreness of the political moment”, apparently. Pink was worn as a colour of “protest, power and persistence”, according to New Mexico representative Teresa Leger Fernández. “It’s time to rev up the opposition and come at Trump loud and clear,” she told Time magazine, with no sense of irony.