I tried very hard to comply with former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich’s call to boycott The US President’s State of the Union address this past week – but when the Al Jazeera prompt flashed up on my computer screen I caved.

The House Chamber was partially full, many Democrats heeded Reich’s call and refused to attend.

The President started with a boast: “Our country is winning so much we don’t know what to do about it.” Republicans began bobbing up and down like manic yo-yos. There was nothing spontaneous about these ‘standing ovations’ – Republicans were clearly under instruction. Every time Trump paused, which he did at the end of virtually every sentence, they leapt up and clapped wildly. At one point he paused after just six words, some Republicans couldn’t get down quick enough to get up again.

This is farce – half of the room in fits of compliant adulation, the other half stony-faced. But it is the kind of farce we cannot ignore because no matter how badly Trump is doing, on virtually every measure, he continues to swing a giant wrecking ball at national and international institutions, and at whole communities, not just in the US but across the globe.

Early on Texas Democrat Al Green could take it no longer and stood silently holding up a sign: ‘“Black people aren’t apes!” (It referred to Trump’s post about the Obamas). Some tried to block photographs and mask the protest, they failed. But Green was jeered and ultimately escorted out.

Continuing his winners theme Trump called in the US men’s ice hockey team. Fresh from an Olympic win, they filed in, all dressed up like the flag, with their gleaming medals. Chants of ‘USA, USA’ filled the chamber.

We found out later that the women’s team, who, by the way, also won gold, declined, very politely, to attend.

We all know politicians hovering in the glow of successful sportspeople is nothing new but be let’s clear what Trump is doing here. He is using the office of the President to commandeer people – worse still, young people – into his gang, the winners gang, the ‘people who will vote for him’ gang. He is using these young people to back his drive to divide people into two groups: those who matter, and those don’t.

But to make us feel a bit better, and then a bit worse, the last word goes to US Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman: “…that speech won’t pull Trump out of his downward spiral. Time to attack Iran?”

Read Scott Burchill on Iran on Saturday and Mike McKinley on Ukraine and Australia’s stance on Sunday.

Back home, on Monday, Louise Adler will set the record straight on the Adelaide writer’s week fiasco.

Until next time.