It's a lot better than it was this time last year, especially with the death of Prop 8 and part of DOMA.

Plus, more people are focused on income inequality than in decades.

And I'm looking forward to the countries first openly gay man being elected governor of a state (Maine) and possibly first openly lesbian woman (Maryland).

Not bad really.

An armed encampment? A bastion of religious fanaticism? A slave to corporate greed? Finally realizing liberals were right all along?

Comme ci, comme ça :)

Surprisingly okay, given all the Republican sabotage.

Heavily armed and increasingly paranoid.

less than it was before Pete Seeger died.

Schizophrenic, and off its meds half the time.

Oh I'm just waiting for the highlights of Boehner's facial contortions and reactions post-address.

Still delusional, but showing signs of self-awareness.

I'm much taken with the recent Pew Research Center poll which shows that a mere 44% of Americans are identifying as middle class (a record low), while 40% now see themselves as lower class. As long as Republicans and corporate Democrats were able to convince America that it was a middle class nation and everyone benefits from sops to the upper-middle class, nothing was ever going to swing towards economic justice. Now, at least, there's an opening.

scared, sitting in the dark, drinking shit beer, murmuring to its handgun(s).

Awesome except for all those goddamn poor people.

Anything but "strong". The speech could be used to spark a transformation of this country, but instead it's usually just a milquetoast photo op. Obama should call Congress and the Supreme Court to the carpet. If nobody walks out he isn't doing his job.

One terrahist attack away from a V for Vendetta-style totalitarian theocracy, though even that prediction may be downright Pollyanna-ish.

Liquid.

Beast Mode!

The state of our union is still FUBAR.

Sorry to be pessimisitc, but progress on the biggest issues of our time - the hijacking of our economy by the super-wealthy, our inevitable destruction of the only habitat we will ever know in 1,000 generations, random outbursts of mass violence - is being held hostage by the attachment a few legislative districts feel to a romanticized vision of a smalltown America that never existed.

I don't envy him having to get up there and state what he knows to be a lie: "The state of our union is strong" and then dance around the fracture lines the whole rest of the speech, after which some Tea Party douchebag will get a chance to speak code for: dark-skinned people, gun regulations, and poor people are killing our country.

we got played by the big O and he has continued and expanded the Bush policies.
but hey, a minimum wage bone and a couple gays got elected.

...doomed.

The Democrats have become Republicans, the Republicans have become insane, and no one is looking at long-term problems in employment or environmental instability.

We're not so much rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic as beating each other with them, a la WWE.

@16, 18 Bazinga.

I'm shocked that most of you hate and fear this country! I never would have guessed it. Really.

Broken and in total denial. Our absolute state in global terms isn't horrible, but it's impossible to get anything done thanks to systemic problems in our politics, economy, and media. We are held hostage to narrow economic interests that don't give a damn for most of the people of the country or the world, and even though we have the numbers and resources and knowledge to turn things around, too many people buy the bullshit that the 1% is peddling.

Dithering.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
RUN!!!!!!!!

Gloomy.

I just wish Obama would come out with a banjo player, lead a complete singing of "This Land is Your Land" and walk out. It'd be better than whatever bullshit he's got.

I second "dithering" (@23)

@26 Works for me.

@26: Where Have All The Flowers Gone. Sing it, drop the mike, walk out.

@26: great. Especially if he sings the full version.

Severely manipulated. Not all at once but very slowly and deliberately to benefit those with enough $$$ to do so could once agin be free of any infringements they didn't like. Basically billionaires throwing a temper tantrum.