By NOLAN FINLEY The Detroit News
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If you love President Donald Trump, you likely loved Tuesday night’s joint address to Congress.

It was stuffed with red meat for the president’s base, a forceful assertion of his America First agenda and an answer for every pet peeve on the conservative list of grievances, from booting transsexuals off women’s sports teams to ridding the nation of wokeness.

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If you hate Trump, you probably hated this speech for all the same reasons.

And if you’re an American standing anywhere near the middle of the nation’s political battlefield, you must be asking yourself, “What in the world was that?”

The night went off the dock as soon as it started. Trump, as always, opened by reciting the glorious details of his November victory. Democrats, waving annoying fans bearing the words “False,” “Musk Steals” and other Valentine messages, tried to shout him down.

Trump had to pause while House Speaker Mike Johnson called for decorum and Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was escorted out of the chamber for screaming “He Lies! and “You have no mandate!” The heckling continued throughout the night, and several other members of the resistance choir kept on singing. Republicans were just as robust in their hooting and taunts. There was not a single moment of unity. Referring to Democrats, Trump said, “There’s nothing I can do to make them stand or smile or applaud.” He was right. Even recognizing a cancer-stricken African American boy dressed in a child’s police uniform didn’t bring all of the Democratic sourpusses out of their seats.

For his part, Trump baited Democrats relentlessly and crudely, at one point referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts by her derogatory nickname, Pocahontas.

This was the standard Trump road show, filled with exaggerated boasts and outlandish promises of things to come, including the seizure of the Panama Canal and the annexation of Greenland.

On the same day, Trump imposed tariffs that are predicted to drive up automobile prices and cripple Detroit’s bread-and-butter industry. He also made the audacious claim that auto executives were cheering the levies, which he claimed will save autoworkers and automakers from destruction. And with prices already rising just from the threat of the tariffs, he made the contradictory pledge to “Make America Affordable Again.” The president’s best moment came in defense of the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump took several minutes to tick off examples of the outrageous expenditures uncovered by Elon Musk and his DOGE team. It’s a message the White House should update every day.

He also suggested a thawing in the relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which is good news.

But none of that masks the embarrassing spectacle of the president and members of Congress exchanging the most juvenile of jabs inside a chamber that has hosted some of the most eloquent and uplifting speeches in history. By the time the hour and forty minutes were over, and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, moved in front of the camera to deliver her choppy and predictable anti-Trump response, viewers were too weary to pay much attention. All anyone is going to remember anyway is the chaos.

Borrowing a phrase Trump used several times, “We’ve never seen anything like this.”