In his second State of the Union address, President Donald Trump demonstrated the capacity to step back from his polemical debating style on social media without yielding ground to his detractors on matters of domestic policy at the top of his agenda. It may have come as a pleasant surprise, or relief, to some that Mr. Trump’s address did not take on the darkly foreboding undertones of his inaugural speech. In her response to the address, Democrat and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams decried the harsh economic pinch of the government shutdown, countering Mr. Trump’s claims of working for the interest of the middle-class American. She highlighted the omission of the gun control debate in the speech, the silence over voter suppression, rising higher education fees, and so on. Unless Mr. Trump genuinely reaches across the political divide to connect meaningfully with over 65 million voters who opposed him in the 2016 election, partisan rancour will remain in the political system and threaten its foundations.

Source: The Hindu February 07, 2019 18:45 UTC