Nancy Pelosi’s righteous rip

Watching House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rip up her copy of President Trump’s State of the Union speech while the cameras rolled was shocking to some, but exhilarating to many — an expression of the defiance and disgust that a lot of Americans feel after three years of watching The Trump Show.

It is notoriously hard to be a supporter of this president. Defending his behavior is a daily exercise in explaining or excusing his incessant lying, his childishness and petty insults, his personal vanity and cynical self-dealing.

But it’s also difficult to be a political opponent of Trump’s. Stoop to his level, as Pelosi briefly did, and critics immediately wail about the need to respect the dignity of the presidency and so on — a level of accountability that has never applied to the incumbent president.

“When they go low, we go high,” former First Lady Michelle Obama famously said, describing the thickskinned patience with which the Obama administration weathered countless acts of disrespect and raw racism.

It’s a fine sentiment that served the Obamas well — but they never had to run against Trump. And they never had to cope with the antics and spectacle of this State of the Union address.

For most of the speech, Trump did his best imitation of Ronald Reagan, falling just short of declaring it “Morning in America,” the iconic imagery and message of a campaign ad that Reagan rode to re-election in 1984. Trump spoke movingly of Americans as pioneers and explorers; he lavished praise on members of the military, several of whom he recognized publicly; he optimistically declared that the best is yet to come.

It was a masterful performance. But behind the sunny smile was the same old Trump: petty, vindictive, deceptive.

He refused to shake the hand of Pelosi upon taking the podium, a calculated public snub. The speech was rife with self-aggrandizing falsehoods about the economy, with Trump falsely claiming to have created more jobs than his predecessor, despite the fact that the 227,000 jobs a month created in the last three years of President Obama’s term easily outpaces the 191,000 jobs per month of the Trump years.

And in an act of stunning, cynical theater, he bestowed the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, on the spot to none other than radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, as shocked members of Congress shouted “No!”

Past Medal of Freedom awardees include Helen Keller, Rosa Parks, Elie Wiesel and Mother Teresa. The man Trump added to this august assembly is a college dropout who made a career out of demeaning and denigrating women and people of color.

Limbaugh’s greatest hits include saying in 2009: “Holocaust? Ninety million Indians? Only four million left? They all have casinos — what’s to complain about?”

He also said publicly that ”Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society.”

In 2004, Limbaugh weighed in with: “I think it’s time to get rid of this whole National Basketball Association. Call it the TBA, the Thug Basketball Association, and stop calling them teams. Call ’em gangs.”

And in 2007, he broadcast the following: “Look, let me put it to you this way: The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”

A couple of years after the “Bloods and Crips” comment, Limbaugh led a group of investors that tried to buy the St. Louis Rams football team — a move that was deep-sixed when black NFL players raised so much fuss that league officials and Limbaugh’s fellow investors abruptly dropped him from the bid.

The pack of Democrats battling for the Democratic presidential nomination should learn a lesson from Pelosi: If you want to answer Trump’s antics, quit worrying about appearances — and be prepared to literally tear up the script.

Louis is political anchor of NY1 News.