I spent yesterday tearing my hair out over the Democrats’ response to Trump’s State of the Union Address. I could say a lot about their choice of respondent and the substance of the response. But I want to focus only on style, rhetoric. Long story, short: I was appalled.

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered, outside academia, people with such a bottomless appetite for mountainous piles of meaningless, unnecessary, empty words and phrases, each genetically engineered, in whole or in part, to make any sentient being stop paying attention. Reading this speech, that is the only conclusion I can come to: that the sole purpose of this speech is to make people stop paying attention.

Again, forget substance, forget ideology, forget what the Democratic Party is. Simply attend to the style, the words, the impact they have on you, the listener, the reader. I’ll dwell on only a few passages, which do the opposite of what a passage is supposed to do—that is, get you from one place to the next.

1. Tonight, as we watched our nation’s lawmakers gather for a joint session of Congress, we did not hear the truth from our President.

“As we watched our nation’s lawmakers gather for a joint session of Congress”: Anyone who’s ever read an undergraduate paper will recognize the telltale sign of someone stalling for time, trying to fill up the page with empty information, simply because they don’t know what to say, are afraid to say what they do have to say, or are trying to make it seem as if they are saying something at all.

In this case, the scene-setting sets no scene at all. Nor does it make any sense. As we watched our nation’s lawmakers gather for a joint session of Congress, no one heard…anything from the president, truth or lies, because the president hadn’t yet spoken. Instead, members of Congress and other assorted guests were milling about or streaming into the chamber, taking their seats. That’s it. Why the respondent to the State of the Union, with so little time, would use 13 words—which take six seconds to state, which is a lot in a speech that shouldn’t last long—to say something so small, so pointless, is beyond me.

“We did not hear the truth from our President”: I understand the need for niceties, but this one takes politesse to the point of no return. We did not hear the truth from the president. Did we heear the truth from someone else? Or did someone else, besides us, hear the truth? Was the president not speaking loudly enough? The passivity, the aggressive vagueness, the aversion to saying anything at all, overwhelms whatever punch the respondent intended to land.

The most direct statement, of course, would have been this: “Tonight, the president lied.” That’s too strong for these folks. So why not this? “Tonight, the president didn’t tell the truth”? Why the atmospheric helplessness, the wounded disappointment, of…we did not hear the truth, which could suggest a problem with our ears, with the sound system, with the acoustics, or the president.

2. Is the President working to make life more affordable for you and your family?

“Working to.” It’s as if a someone applying for a grant from the Ford Foundation wrote this speech. The pointless gerund. The needless focus on intentions rather than results. Do I care if the president is “working to” make my life better? No, I care if he’s made my life better. It’s all words to clog the filters. Any six-year-old can tell you “I’m working toward cleaning my room.” The question is: Have you cleaned the fucking room? How about, “Has Donald Trump made your life easier, more affordable?”

3. As I campaigned for Governor last year, I traveled to every corner of Virginia, and I heard the same pressing concern everywhere: costs are too high. In housing, healthcare, energy, and childcare. And I know these same conversations are being had all across this country.

“As I campaigned for Governor last year, I traveled to every corner of Virginia.” This is the equivalent of a student writing in their paper, “As I began thinking about the essay topic last night, I…” No one cares about your process, about how you came to write what you’re going to write, or say what you’re about to say. Just say it. No voter gives a shit that you traveled to every corner of Virginia, particularly when you’re campaigning for governor. No one even likes the idea of politicians campaigning for anything, so why would you mention it? And if the point is that what the governor hears in every corner of Virginia is what we’re all hearing everywhere, what is the situational validity of her travels?

“In housing, healthcare, energy, and childcare.” Words cooked up in a lab at the Kennedy School. Why the aversion to concreteness? Does it take five speechwriters, ten consultants, and a committee of Democrats to come up with this bilge? Why not: “Everywhere, Americans are saying the same thing: life is too expensive. People can’t pay the rent, they can’t pay their doctors’ bills, they can’t pay for heat, and they can’t pay someone to take care of their kids.”

Why is this so fucking hard? I’m supposed to be a pointy-headed over-educated professor whose pointy head is in the clouds. Yet I could write a better speech in my sleep. And for a lot less money than I’m sure this flotilla of speechwriters and consultants are getting paid.

4. Because since this President took office last year, his reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs.

Oy. How about “President Trump’s tariffs have cost your family $1700.” What’s with “tariff costs.” When the Republicans want to attack taxes, they say taxes. They don’t cushion the attack with the pillowy softness of “tax costs.” And why is it necessary to say “since the president took office last year”? Are we supposed to think Trump imposed the tariffs before he took office? It’s a pointless detail.

5. Farmers have suffered — some losing entire markets.

I don’t even know what this means. That farmers can’t export soybeans to Canada? Say so. A little specificity never hurt anyone.

6. Rural health clinics in Virginia are already closing their doors thanks to the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” championed by the President and Republicans in Congress.

Note the passivity of the language. Somewhere in the background is this thing called a Big Beautiful Bill, the repetition of which only reinforces the idea that it is beautiful when it’s not. And somewhere in the foreground clinics are being closed. That’s it. Just a conjunction of two entities, ever so slightly brought into proximity by that weasel word “thanks.”

Why not, “President Trump and the Republicans have shut down health clinics across my state and your state. They’ve defunded [remember, that idea of defunding isn’t popular] doctors for poor people, nurses for farmers, medical techs for truckers. When you get sick, you can’t find anyone to help you get better. And it’s Trump’s fault.”

I could go on and on. But you get the point.