Democrats Are Panicking After Refusing to Stand Up for Americans
Over at PJ Media, I wrote about the moment during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address when Democrats lost the midterms.
And it looks like they are worried that might be true.
During his speech, Trump looked across the chamber and said, “One of the great things about the State of the Union is how it gives Americans the chance to see clearly what their representatives really believe.” Then he gave them a chance to prove it.
He asked every legislator to stand if they agreed with a simple, nonpartisan statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
The Republicans shot up to their feet, cheering, whistling, and clapping for a full two minutes. It was raw, unmistakable patriotism.
And the Democrats? They didn’t move. Not a single one. Well, probably John Fetterman did. But otherwise, no applause. No nod of agreement. Just silence and shuffling.
That image — half of Congress roaring in support of America First, the other half sitting on their hands — will replay in campaign ads across the country for months. And it’s already started.
And now Democrats are panicking, desperately trying to explain it away, but the damage is done.
Trump didn’t have to call them “open borders radicals” or “anti-American.” They did it for him, live on television. It was a political masterstroke — the kind that takes two sentences and turns them into a defining image for an entire election cycle.
Conservative radio host Jason Rantz nailed it afterward. “The president was setting up Democrats in a really simple and easy way,” he said on CNN after the speech. “They shouldn’t have fallen for it. It seems pretty easy to stand up and say, actually, no, I support American people first. But they walked into that trap because it was so easy to set.”
Exactly. Standing up wouldn’t have cost them anything — unless, of course, doing so would expose how far their party has drifted from everyday Americans.
But, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), who was also on the panel, tried to spin his way out of it.
“Well, but that’s not true. I mean, I stand for Americans over non-citizens, and so do all of my colleagues,” Moskowitz said. “It’s not the Galactic Senate. Just because the emperor says rise doesn’t mean I get up. I’m a different branch of government.”
That kind of petty deflection is exactly what regular voters despise — the smugness, the self-importance, the tone of people who think patriotism is some kind of performance art.
I don’t think even host Abby Phillip bought that argument, because she tried another line of defense entirely.
“The president says something innocuous,” she began.“The party that is the opposite party doesn’t stand. That happens every single year.”
Except it wasn’t routine. Trump wasn’t asking lawmakers to applaud him. He was asking them to affirm a basic truth: that the government’s first obligation is to protect its own people. (RELATED: Even CNN Admits That Democrats Are in Big Trouble on This Key Issue)
It wasn’t politics. It wasn’t even a gotcha question. It was a poll. And the Democrats said “no” with their silence.
The optics couldn’t have been better for Trump and the GOP — or worse for a party. By refusing to stand, Democrats managed to look both petty and unpatriotic while giving Trump the perfect sound bite for every Republican candidate running in 2026.