President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address in some ways followed the examples set by historical precedent, wrote Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government Andrew Rudalevige in The Washington Post political science blog Monkey Cage.

The aim of the annual presidential speech, he said, is “to stress the administration’s achievements to the home audience and to show the president in command of a wide-ranging, substantive program for the year to come.”

While Trump’s address did “name-check a wide variety of issues,” Rudalevige said it was vaguer than most SOTUs and short on “substantive detail.”

In one respect, though, the President’s speech may be unique: namely, “in hastening the obsolescence of the State of the Union itself.” Read more.