Even Donald Trump’s more extreme supporters did not seem to mind that he sounded almost like a traditional Republican

So, how did conservatives like the State of the Union?

Those expecting that Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address would be remarkable, for better or worse, were disappointed last night. It was mostly a rehearsal of by-now familiar Trumpian talking points, and some disingenuous “reaching out” on immigration policy, all delivered with workmanlike oratorial competence. For the president, of course, it was yet another opportunity for grandstanding.

An unexpectedly normal speech meshed well with a new imperative among conservatives to normalize the speaker. In 2018, Trump’s campaign rhetoric around economic populism has come to nothing. His talk on immigration – still punitive and restrictionist – hews much closer to the GOP’s standard line. The populist-nationalist interlopers have been flushed out of the White House. All this means that more traditional Republican conservatives have less to object to.

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Thus Frank Luntz, GOP pollster, talking head, and longtime Trump doubter, was moved last night to apologize to the president on Twitter, saying that on the strength of the speech he had “faith and hope in America again”.

At the Federalist, Helen Raleigh, who has also been a critic in the past, praised Trump’s “heartwarming examples and … conciliatory tone”.

And in a Facebook post, conservative talk radio firebrand and sometime Trump critic Mark Levin called it “outstanding”, “beautifully delivered”, and said that the media narrative about the president had been “obliterated”.

Even the #nevertrump grumps at neoconservative bible the Weekly Standard conceded that Trump had given an OK speech. Sour grapes returned, though, in their contention that the whole SOTU spectacle had become “a risible affair”, and that “no segment of the American public enjoys or appreciates it”.

Trump’s longtime fans were ecstatic about the speech, amid some evidence of widespread public approval.

This morning, on the president’s favourite TV show, Fox & Friends, Newt Gingrich said that Trump had “hit a home run”, which was no doubt well received by the viewer in the Oval Office. In National Review, long-term (and long-winded) Trump acolyte Conrad Black (AKA Baron Black of Crossharbour) claimed that Trump had united the country so thoroughly that “the Resistance is collapsing”. And Breitbart delightedly reported the praise Trump received from his erstwhile rival, “Lying’ Ted” Cruz.

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It was never going to be sufficient to merely praise Trump, however. Across the board, conservatives also flayed his opponents.

First cab off the rank was Joe Kennedy, who was mocked for “drooling” during his SOTU response, and had his performance compared to Marco Rubio’s hapless, dry-mouthed response to President Obama in 2013. (Kennedy suggested that the “drool” was a result of the overenthusiastic application of a ChapStick).

The dreaded “MSM” were also duly lacerated. The Washington Post copped it for appearing to change its front page after progressives complained that it had taken too soft a line on the president. The low-attention-span snarkers at Twitchy asked, “Weird. It’s totally OK to criticize the press as ‘fake news’ when they do something you don’t like?”

And on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show on Tuesday night, Trump’s one-time campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said that the press was horrified that Trump is “proud to call America the greatest country in the world again”. (This was duly reported on Lifezette, the website that Ingraham founded.)

The Democratic legislators who refused to stand and applaud the president’s every line were also put through the wringer. At longtime conservative blog, the American Thinker, Patricia McCarthy called their refusal to cheer a “galling demonstration of incivility”.

One segment of the right had high expectations of Trump’s speech. Some adherents of the “Storm” conspiracy theory were expecting the president to call time on the “Deep State” in his address. Some speculated that he would announce the arrests of those allegedly plotting against him, such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, or to pardon Julian Assange. Yesterday, they were preparing to carry out “meme warfare” on the president’s behalf.

Their theory revolves around intermittent posts from a pseudonymous account, known as Q, on message board 8chan. Believers hold that the account is run by a highly placed source in the administration. Its cryptic, even nonsensical, outpourings have been interpreted as indicating that Trump is waging secret war on treasonous elements within the US power structure. Some even think that the Mueller investigation is a clever “false flag”, and that the special prosecutor is cooperating with Trump to crack the Deep State open.

The large community devoted to unraveling the messages convenes on 8chan, a dedicated subreddit, and other corners of the web. It has received boosts from ostensibly mainstream figures like Sean Hannity, and even Roseanne Barr, who have referenced the theory on Twitter. (Naturally, Infowars is also on the case.)

Trump didn’t, of course, announce that Hillary had been sent to Gitmo last night. But such thinking, more and more common on the right, is generally impervious to new information. After Trump’s nothing speech, Storm aficionados contented themselves with praising his patriotism, and trying to persuade themselves that he had in fact referenced their fantasies.

Anything is preferable to acknowledging that Trump is sounding more and more like just another Republican.