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If you want a quick visual representation of a major reason Americans rejected the Democrat Party to vote Donald Trump and his MAGA movement into office in a red wave all across the country last November, a short video is making the rounds of social media featuring a cringe-worthy hip-hop performance by a middle-aged dance troupe at New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s recent State of the State address. It is emblematic of a Party that is so unserious and out of touch with the American people that its leadership happily fiddles while a country reeling from progressive planned incompetence literally burns.

An early indication that Democrats don’t have their finger on the pulse of the country came when celebrity endorsements did not move the needle one iota in favor of candidate Kamala Harris, whose campaign depended heavily on others to speak for her. Unlike during the Obama era when star-struck voters were still capable of being seduced by cool celebs circling in his charismatic orbit, Americans no longer care whether billionaire elites like Beyoncé or Oprah are rooting for you.

Then came more evidence that the Party cares not a whit for American citizens: Los Angeles’ Communist Mayor Karen Bass grinning for photos at a cocktail party in Ghana as wildfires ravaged her city; North Carolina victims of Hurricane Helene still waiting, months later, for relief from an administration funneling billions of dollars to Ukraine; and .

Then, last Tuesday, New York’s Gov. Hochul delivered her State of the State address. Let it be noted that Hochul, like Kamala Harris, Karen Bass, and the entire Democrat leadership generally, is a far-Left ideologue whose mission is to prioritize the progressive agenda, not the people of her state. How much of a Left-wing ideologue is she? Check out her extensive profile at the Horowitz Freedom Center’s indispensable online encyclopedia of the Left, Discover the Networks.

To warm up the crowd before Hochul took the stage Tuesday evening, a troupe of middle-aged-and-older dancers called the New York Liberty Timeless Torches performed a mercifully brief routine to the accompaniment of a recording 0f Justin Timberlake’s hip-hop number “Suit & Tie.” It quickly segued into the Bell Biv DeVoe hit “Poison.” The relevance of this performance and the song choices to the state of New York state remains unclear.

With all due respect to the Timeless Torches and others in my own age range, posturing like pimps and hoes out of a Bell Biv DeVoe video from 1990 is not a good look for, well, anyone, but certainly anyone over the age of 40 (unless you actually are Justin Timberlake, who at 43 can still pull it off). And it is very bad optics for a governor, presiding over a state being consumed by Democrat-driven chaos, to begin an address to her constituents with something like an outtake from a local AARP talent show. It reeks of a fundamental immaturity and unseriousness that afflicts the Democrat Party writ large, at a time when New Yorkers are feeling overwhelmed by an infestation of violent foreign gangs, a destabilizing tsunami of illegal immigration, and horrific subway crimes such as the immolation of a female rider by an illegal alien who fanned the flames and watched her die after torching her.

Social media posters expressed their disbelief about the embarrassing hip-hop show with withering commentary. “My state is not run by serious people,” one user wrote. “That dance you do after misappropriating all your taxpayer funds,” another poster said. A third said, “Simply amazing that this was given a go ahead. This is more proof New York is a dumpster fire.”

In response, Press Secretary Jeremy Redfern for Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis noted hilariously, “I just wanted to go on the record to say that we did not book any dancers for @GovRonDeSantis’ State of the State address.” He added, “I know this news is disappointing to some, but we believe FL’s budget must remain roughly half NY’s, even though FL has more people and better roads.”

City-Journal’s E.J. McMahon offers a good summary of Hochul’s address and its accompanying 137-page State of the State policy booklet. “To generate an atmosphere of celebration,” he observes, the event began with a 47-minute program of live performances such as the hip-hop debacle and a poetry recital by Buffalo’s “poet laureate.” McMahon writes that her

theatrically staged State of the State speech program could be seen as a political distress signal—an overproduced exercise in shameless self-promotion for a governor struggling with negative poll ratings, desperate for more positive attention two-plus years after winning election by a surprisingly close margin.

Hochul’s speech was full of boilerplate promises to get under control all the problems the Democrat Party caused in the first place: out-of-control homelessness, out-of-control lawlessness, out-of-control cost of living, and so on. As for the high-profile issue of subway crime, she simply stated that the “surge” in crimes on the transit system “cannot continue,” but she blamed “many of these horrific incidents” on homeless people “with serious untreated mental illness” who “are disconnected from our mental health care system.” No mention of the crimes resulting from illegal immigration, foreign gangs such as Tren de Aragua, and the state’s revolving-door, two-tier criminal justice system.

As the social media responses to the State of the State address silliness demonstrate, New Yorkers aren’t buying what Hochul is selling. Bell Biv DeVoe probably said it best: “That girl is poison.” And so is the rest of her Party.