Just one year ago, Donald Trump stood in front of an exhausted nation to deliver a pick-me-up of bipartisan love.

Yes, several thousand Americans had just died after his botched recovery in Puerto Rico. Yes, he was kowtowing to the Kremlin and kneecapping the FBI. But why, he wondered, can’t we just get along?

“It is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy,” he lamented. “Tonight, I call up on all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.”

Trump’s leadership has been utterly flawless on this front. You might even say unimpeachable.

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In the last 12 months, he has brought Washington together in horror by separating thousands of immigrant children from their parents and detaining thousands more in secret prisons. He has dismayed both sides of Congress by bragging about a government shutdown that began while his party controlled the whole ball game. Republicans and Democrats alike stood aghast as he cozied up to North Korea, forced out his respected defense secretary, and pathetically petted Vladimir Putin.

He has never wavered from setting aside his calls to set aside our differences. He has resolutely failed to seek out common ground. And his idea of unity is to rally as many old white men as he can find on a golf course.

After Democrats took control of the House in the biggest mid-term landslide in decades, Trump has united the country to the point where a clear majority won’t even consider voting for his reelection next year.

It’s reassuring to know that the climate may change, the economy may tip into recession, but Trump’s entirely empty calls for comity go on year after year. It’s almost as if his speechwriters aren’t reading his tweets.

“Together, we can break decades of political stalemate,” Trump declared on Tuesday night, after breaking the spirits of so many federal workers with his self-imposed stalemate over his imaginary border wall.

“We can bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions, and unlock the extraordinary promise of America’s future. The decision is ours to make.”

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Sadly Trump himself made his own decision earlier on Tuesday when he called Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, a “nasty son of a bitch”. Perhaps that counted as a new wound to be healed at some indeterminate point in the future. At next year’s state of the union, quite possibly.

Those comments came at the president’s traditional lunch with news anchors. So it was an entirely confidential attempt to build new coalitions, forge new solutions, etc.

If Trump didn’t have such obvious trouble breathing through his nose, you might say this state of the union was breathtaking.

After losing so many children at the border, turning away so many asylum seekers, and distorting immigration law into a tool of punishment, Trump had the chutzpah to say: “We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens.”

Moral duty are the words that will surely be carved into the opening paragraph of his obituary. Along with words such as “failure” and “complete absence”.

“No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s WORKING CLASS and America’s POLITICAL CLASS than illegal immigration,” he said with the kind of rhetorical flourish that would have made Demosthenes cry. “Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.”

This counts a zinger on Planet Trump. If a doorman is good enough for Trump Tower, why not place doormen all along the southern border? There really is nothing quite as down to earth as a populist billionaire.

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Trump was sorely in need of more zingers on Tuesday, if not a pile of crushed amphetamine. He was, in his own words, extraordinarily low energy.

He halted at the end of every half-line as if surprised by the phrases and policies that followed. Almost like he was reading the speech from his prompter for the first time. Almost like he’s spent the last year watching cable television and rage tweeting instead of bringing people together or boning up about policy.

His hand gestures were expansive in ways that his policies obviously aren’t. His words were elastic in ways that his mind obviously isn’t.

Without a trace of irony, he insisted he would not shy away from those who threaten the Jewish people. “We must never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism, or those who spread its venomous creed,” said the man who described the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville as some very fine people.

The only life in the speech came from the split decision on the faces of the two people seated behind him. Vice-president Mike Pence smiled with all the sincerity that his android builders had hardwired into his circuit boards. House speaker Nancy Pelosi puckered up like she was enduring a full gallon of fresh lemons.

The Trump doctrine, such as it is, found its fullest expression in the carefully crafted – and sometimes rhythmically rhyming – phrases that tripped and slipped from Trump’s lips. Channeling his inner Charlie Sheen, and as much tiger blood as courses through his veins he insisted “America is winning each and every day”.

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But wait. There are clouds on the horizon: strange celestial illuminations that portend no good. They could imperil us all, or perhaps just those among us who go by the name of Trump.

“An economic miracle is taking place in the United States – and the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations,” said the Trump patriarch. “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.”

Play Video 1:13 Trump accuses Democrats of ‘ridiculous partisan investigations’ at State of the Union – video

As rhyming slogans go, this is notch below “BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL!” But in terms of proto-national emergencies, Mueller’s many-headed investigations and indictments are far more pressing to this president than the one he’s faking at the border.

Which helps explain his curious choice of guest: a schoolboy who shares his last name and has been sadly mistreated by his school friends as a result. The whole schtick about inviting guests to a state of the union is to open the aperture to the world outside. In Trump’s case, the world outside extends to people with the same name suffering from his own reputation.

Let’s face it. The state of the union bores President Trump as much as he bored us while delivering it. All that time wasted talking about the state of the union, when he really wanted to talk about the state of Trump. Perhaps he could rebrand it in time for his final delivery next year.