He gives the State of the Union at night: “Everyone is asking how Tiger played yesterday. The answer is Great! He was long, straight & putted fantastically well. He shot a 64.”

He gives the State of the Union from the Rose Garden after the government reopens after being shuttered for weeks (“We do not need two thousand miles of concrete wall from sea to shiny sea”) and to the New York Times in a freewheeling, 85-minute interview (“You know I’m building the wall. You know that. I’m building the wall right now.”)

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Once upon a time, a president’s thoughts were stealthy and rare, like snow leopards. These days, they are loud and everywhere, like cicadas. Before electricity, citizens might expect to hear from their president only once a year (is electricity worth it?). The “Annual Message,” as the custom was known for most of its history, provided a venue for the president to air his important thoughts and the scribes to take them down.

With a stream-of-consciousness president who is constantly updating us on the state of the union — or the state of Tiger Woods’s putting, such as the case may be — a grand speech before Congress feels like a relic. Last month, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked the president from giving the address during the government shutdown, the State of the Union risked joining the daily press briefing and the White House correspondents’ dinner on the list of endangered swamp species.

“It’s become more political theater than a substantive gathering,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “I have to say, if the State of the Union formality went away, I don’t think I would miss it.”

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And yet here we are, gathered at the Capitol for the annual speech, the normiest norm to survive an abnormal presidency.

What’s the point?

Maybe it’s the fact that when it happens, it’s the only thing happening. “There is something valuable about the ceremony,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a few hours before the speech, “and the longform ability for the executive to command his or her attention to his or her agenda.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) seemed to agree. “I think that it’s probably worth having us focus,” Tillis said as he boarded the Capitol tram with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

But which is a better representation of the state of the union, the president’s regular tweets or his annual oration?

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“Different venues,” Cardin said, scooting off the tram.

“Right,” Tillis said.

Indeed. The president’s tweets arrive suddenly and asynchronously, with all the pomp and circumstance of an alarm-clock radio. The State of the Union, though, is a prime time event with a red-carpet atmosphere that makes it, perhaps, indispensable to the politicians in attendance — if not the folks at home, who are made to wait an extra week for a new episode of “Black-ish.”

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A couple hours before the main event, a smattering of minor celebrities milled around the Capitol. Captain America (i.e. the actor Chris Evans) was there, out of uniform. So was restaurateur José Andrés, who has clashed with Trump over the president’s disparaging comments about undocumented immigrants. There was the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, a Trump fan who refused to join an advertiser boycott of Laura Ingraham’s show after the Fox News host mocked a school-shooting survivor. There was Donald Trump Jr., looking trim in his suit. The state of his beard is strong.

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And yet the state of the Capitol was sleepy.

As the cable-news countdown clocks ticked below 20 minutes, members of Congress filed into the House chamber, many in bipartisan pairs. The message: We can stand each other!

There was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) fresh off announcing her intention to run for president yukking it up with Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), the least-liked Republican in the Senate.

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Pelosi, in suffragette-white, and Vice President Pence, in a blue tie, stood atop the dais making chit-chat, if not eye contact. “This is mine, this is yours,” she said, referring to papers in front of them.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, had lingered outside the chamber until right before the speech began so he could “get the worst seat in the house.” He knew that no matter what the president said, it wouldn’t be the true state of the union.

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“In the case of this administration, the State of the Union address is like a compromise between the psyche of the president and the will of the administration,” he said. “Somewhere in between, this document emerges.”

Sometime around 9 p.m., Trump emerged with a red tie and a John Wayne squint, looking much like his Twitter avatar, then began a speech that could not be mistaken for one of his tweets.

“Millions of our fellow citizens are watching us now, gathered in this great chamber, hoping that we will govern not as two parties, but as one nation,” he read off the teleprompter. “Victory is not winning for our party. Victory is winning for our country.”

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It was a nice sentiment, if a bit odd, coming from a president who earlier in the day had tweeted: “I see Schumer is already criticizing my State of the Union speech, even though he hasn’t seen it yet. He’s just upset that he didn’t win the Senate, after spending a fortune, like he thought he would. Too bad we weren’t given more credit for the Senate win by the media!”

That version of Trump showed up at the State of the Union, too, though the teleprompter stopped him short of shouting “WITCH HUNT” in all caps.

“An economic miracle is taking place in the United States,” he said. “And the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations.”

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That line didn’t win over any new supporters, at least not in the divided chamber. Still, Trump knows how to play to a crowd. Midway through the speech, he offered an applause line that he knew even Democrats couldn’t pass up.

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“All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before,” he said. “We also have more women serving in Congress than ever before.”

With that, the entire chamber rose to its feet, including a sea of women dressed in white. There was dancing. There was cheering. The entire chamber erupted in chanting: “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

“That’s great,” Trump said, smiling.

The state of the union was great.