The State of the Union has always been more about theater than substance. By the next day, almost no one can remember what was said. The speech is too long, the applause insincere, the cutaways overly staged. Huge moonshots are announced, only to fall back to Earth, unremembered.

Yet every now and then, the state of the union becomes so alarming that the State of the Union acquires a new fascination, as a different kind of theater. Sometimes, it is a theater of the absurd.