Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, the newsletter that looks at the world of politics with the same childlike wonder Joe Biden experiences when he looks at Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Never did we think there’d be a week in which the State of the Union was more interesting than the Super Tuesday of a presidential election year, but events have conspired so. Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are reluctant allies again, and TikTok somehow thought that unleashing a mob of mid-orthodontic children to harass all of Congress might prevent it from getting banned. In exciting news, a promising Senate career was set aflame.

Let’s begin, though, with a Senate career already burnt to the ground.

By Jim Newell

While leaving the Capitol the day she announced that she wouldn’t run for reelection, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was asked by reporters whether she had anything else to add. An aide walking alongside her responded, “Blah blah blah blah blah,” Sinema laughed, and she was on her way. It was an appropriate exit for the singularly arrogant senator, who could point to everything but her own shortcomings for her inability to win reelection. In her announcement video, Sinema blamed the mouth-breathing, ungrateful electorate for her decision. “Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done, I will leave the Senate at the end of this year,” Sinema said. “I believe in my approach. But it’s not what America wants right now.” If Sinema were less like this, she might not have been in this situation. She played an important part in passing a host of bipartisan bills in the previous Congress. But she barely made herself available to Arizonans, the media, or even her fellow senators while giving K Street and Davos as much attention as they craved. There’s a difference between “centrism” and performing favors for wealthy interests, such as weakening prescription drug pricing legislation or preserving tax breaks for private equity, that the “center” has no interest in and that she feels no obligation to defend to the public. No, being disliked by every constituency in your state happens not because you’re just a little too good at your job. But whatever she has to tell herself.

The bar for the president’s State of the Union address was set extremely low. As long as he........

© Slate