There were many things to shock and astound at the State of the Union address on Tuesday night. I, of course, was paying attention to standout moments with respect to race. Like when President Trump declared that, “We ended DEI in America.” Or when he announced legislation that would mandate that all voters show ID and proof of citizenship — a proposal that opponents “say is racist,” Trump said. (It is.) Or when he insinuated that the U.S. had been uninhabited — just “empty marshes and wide-open plains” — before frontiersmen settled the West.
But one of the most consistent rhetorical tools that I noticed in Trump’s speech was his use of dramatic, often disturbing anecdotes, in order to portray broader realities. Realities that, in many cases, don’t actually exist. (As they say — anecdote is not data.)
The president also recounted a devastating incident in which a Ukrainian refugee was stabbed to death in Charlotte, to illustrate the narrative that criminals are running rampant in cities across the country — except, of course, the cities where Trump has already deployed the National Guard. (Reality: Crime, including violent crime, has been on a rapid decline since the 1990s.) He dug up another stabbing incident, too, of a girl who was killed in her home in 2023, by an “illegal alien criminal.” The girl’s “heartbroken mother is in the gallery to remind everyone in this chamber exactly why we are deporting illegal alien criminals,” Trump said, “At record numbers, and we’re getting them the hell out of here fast. We don’t want ‘em.”
The president did not, notably, bring up the gruesome anecdotes of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti being shot and killed by federal agents at protests in Minneapolis. He did, however, direct people in the chamber to stand up if they agreed with this statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” To which Rep. Ilhan Omar shouted, “You have killed Americans!”
As a journalist, I’m acutely aware of the power of individual stories. Names and faces stick with many people in a way that numbers and graphs do not. But responsible journalism requires seeking out stories that represent a larger truth — not cherry-picking ones to conjure up a world that conveniently lines up with one’s political goals.
So yes, the stories that President Trump shared during his speech should indeed have disgusted and heartbroken people. Not because they represent reality, but because of how they were used to misrepresent it.
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Puerto Rican independence is in the spotlight after Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show. So we're throwing it to our play cousins at La Brega, a show about all things Puerto Rico. We hear from former Young Lords member Iris Morales about how the group took their love for their homeland to educate and organize against U.S. colonialism. Then, tomorrow, tune back in for another episode about the legacy of Rev. Jesse Jackson, and why people should avoid becoming cynical in thinking through his legacy.
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