HEATHER WILHELM: Hapless in Democratland.

Strangely, the Democratic party’s strategy for 2018 seems to revolve around reminding people how happy they are that Democrats aren’t in charge.

Witness prominent left-leaning responses to Trump’s State of the Union address, which earned an impressive 75 percent approval rating in a CBS News poll. Eight out of ten of the viewers in the poll “felt that the president was trying to unite the country, rather than divide it,” and “two-thirds said the speech made them feel proud.” Sure, we can argue about the policy implications of the address, but that’s been true for almost every State of the Union in the history of the nation. (“Free” community college! The magical “creation” of hundreds of thousands of jobs! An army of hydrogen cars!) In short, it was a well-written, well-delivered speech.

Perhaps that sounds boring to you, so it’s high time for some hyperventilation. Over to you, Democrats! CNN’s Sally Kohn called the speech “scary” and “terrifying.” Elizabeth Warren tweeted that she attended only because she wanted its horrors “burned into my eyes.” But it was perhaps MSNBC’s Joy Reid who took the cake, tweeting out a bizarre and amazing word salad trashing various American institutions: “Church . . . family . . . police . . . military . . . the national anthem . . . Trump trying to call on all the tropes of 1950s-era nationalism. The goal of this speech appears to be to force the normalization of Trump on the terms of the bygone era his supporters are nostalgic for.”

Ah, I can see the campaign posters now: “Can’t stand church and family? Neither can we! Vote for the Democrats in 2018!” It’s mind-boggling, isn’t it? I mean, come on, people. Pretending to be a normal human being can’t really be that hard.

Actually, when politicians rate at least half the country as “deplorable,” then it really is that hard.