Rebuttal to DT's Speech to Congress

I didn’t watch it. But I spent an hour reading it, and getting the gist. Bernie walked out. They cheered. We boo’ed, but it was the rebuttal afterward that got my goat more than the ridiculous use of pink (when will we learn?), and antics that get nothing done. Seriously? When are ‘we’ going to get it. They should have had me - or any of you - do the counter. Who did they have? Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan delivered the official Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s address. Senator Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who served three tours in Iraq, has dedicated much of her life to public service. She was elected to the Senate in 2024, succeeding Debbie Stabenow, and has been recognized as a rising star within the Democratic Party.

However, Senator Slotkin has, on multiple occasions, voted in favor of President Trump’s appointments, ones that endanger our nation. For instance, she supported the nomination of Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. She knew better. Her inconsistency of her opposition to the administration’s agenda made her a terrible choice to respond last night. I am a better choice.

In her rebuttal, Senator Slotkin emphasized the importance of the middle class, national security, and democratic principles. She criticized the administration’s economic policies, highlighting rising costs in essentials like groceries, housing, and healthcare. Additionally, she expressed concern over tariffs imposed on allies, suggesting they could harm various sectors. While these points are valid, they remain within a gray area, lacking the directness needed to address the pressing issues at hand. Huh? Rome is burning, the Titanic is sinking; he stood up there spilling lies with every breath and that is our response?

Throughout her 11-minute address, Senator Slotkin did not use the words “lie” or “lies.” Not once. She refrained from labeling President Trump or his representatives as liars, nor did she suggest that those who speak the truth risk removal by the administration, or worse, financial and personal ruin. This cautious approach may have been intended to maintain civility, but it falls short of confronting the blatant falsehoods presented earlier in the evening.

Civility died in January. What we have is an opportunity to be smart, not lose our core values and fight, fight, fight. Go to the mattresses. I’m done with you idiots.

“My name is Christine Merser, and I hold no political position or political brilliance, but I am an American who cares deeply about what I came to believe was the America that I was lucky enough to be born into. I now see that much of what I thought all these years—and I’m not going to tell you how many, but let’s say it’s more than 50 by dozens—I was told things that were not true. We’re not going to go through those tonight because I only have 10 minutes. But I’m sorry for not seeing beneath to the surface for many of the years behind me.

A rebuttal after a State of the Union—or in this case, a false State of the Union, a State of the Union filled with lies—is normally where the other side gives us another point of view. That point of view might differ on how to get something done or might differ on what should be done, but it was certainly something that a discerning American citizen could take in and then decipher for themselves between the two points of view given that night—what they thought was good, bad, and indifferent about the direction of the country.

You can’t give a rebuttal to lies. Nothing that Donald Trump said tonight was true. I don’t have time to just list off the lies, so they’re running behind me, and we will be putting them out on social media. But treating this as if it were something worthy of rebuttal would be a mistake on my part.

Instead, I want to bring a point of view to the American people who are not sitting on the side of the aisle that I sit on or that those in my circle of influence and collaboration sit on. I want to speak to the other side.

<At this moment, a scroll of the lies runs slowly behind me on the screen. Slow. One by one, and at the same time they are running, they are posted on all social media by as many members of congress as we can. One by one. Hashtags for each one. An invitation to repost the ones that speak to our followers, and asking them to forward them to those they will affect the most.>

My rebuttal is not to Donald Trump’s lies tonight but rather to you. And it’s personal. Whatever is making you stand behind this administration—one that has no interest in you personally unless you’re in their billionaire circle—should be embarrassing at best and tragic at worst. I can’t help but wonder if you’re on a train so fast that you don’t have to look at your behavior and what it says about who you are as a human to the children coming after you—that you’re not stopping to evaluate the fact that you can get off that train. Whatever thing you’re holding onto and can’t let go of at this moment in time will be a regret. We all have regrets. My biggest regret is that I clearly didn’t know how our country had failed you, where it did not fail me, and I didn’t do anything to make your life better so that you would not turn against both yourself and me.

I think that these people have brought out an anger from you toward the ‘me’s’ of the world because somehow you think my life was easier than yours. And in so many cases, my life was easier than yours.

But this is not the answer, and I will not dignify one thing that was said tonight with a reply.

When my sister was in first grade—or maybe kindergarten—she told her class that her brother was eaten by a lion at the zoo and that’s why we moved to this new place to start a life. Her teacher actually went up to my mother and said how sorry she was about my brother dying. My mother, confused, asked her what she was talking about, and after the teacher told her, my mother said, "It’s not true." Looking back—and I was in the fourth grade, so it’s a bit vague—I couldn’t help but wonder why the teacher would believe a five-year-old who had such a fantastical story and apparently told it with such relish.

Our ability to question and our ability to use intuition to determine what makes sense and what doesn’t have somehow been lost in this moment. I see people being interviewed and asked point-blank what it is that he’s done that makes them back him with such fervent passion. And they never have anything specific—or if they do, it’s not true. And when I show them it’s not true, they turn away. But not from him—from me.

Here’s the warning to all of you. I’m done playing nice in the sandbox. None of us will go down without a fight. Someone said to me that she wanted to be on the right side of history yesterday. I countered with, "I just want to be right." We have not always been a right side of history. Our war in Vietnam? We were not on the right side of history. Some of the dictators we backed in Third World countries? Not on the right side of history. So I don’t know what will happen at the end of this historical, pivotal, game-changing moment. But I know what is right and what is wrong and so do you.

This is not a debate. This is good versus evil. There’s nothing more. And know that we will meet you at every corner. We will try to stop you at every move you make. We will not meet you halfway. Nothing that has happened so far is for the good of the country or any humans other than billionaires. That is a true statement. I can’t even believe that I can write it as a true statement.

So you’re on notice. I will not sit silently across from you at a dinner party. And I haven’t been very smart about how I fought so far, but I’m going to get smarter. You want chaos? You have no idea the chaos we’re going to create. But there’s a line we won’t cross that you are already willing to. I will not give away my values to win.

So my rebuttal is: game on. And here is the list of lies. I will put them out every day for the next few days, and that’s all I’ll talk about. This was a lie. This was a lie. This was a lie. This was a lie. No, no—that’s not a question. It was a lie.

And I am not a leader. I am a collaborator, though, and I think collaboration works every time. The pyramid scheme of leadership you have built will fall, or we will all die never having given up.

Good night, and God Bless my United States of America.