I am not going to watch the State of the Union Address tonight. My advice to you, if you want to live a happier and more well-informed life, is that you shouldn’t either.

Whatever Barack Obama has to say tonight is completely irrelevant. None of it will become law. He has intentionally and irretrievably poisoned the well with the people who will run Congress over the next two years, to say nothing of members of his own party. He does not even have alleged pederast [mc_name name=’Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000146′ ] as a public whipping boy anymore to bring his wildly unpopular ideas to the floor. As David Nather pointed out last week, for as much as Obama continues to talk a big game about executive action, he is realistically nearing the end of what he can accomplish without Congress.

So if you want to have some idea of what the government will actually do over the next two years, you would be better served by disemboweling a sheep or pig or something and trying to read the messages contained in the entrails. And if you want good entertainment, the final season of Justified starts on FX tonight, so I know what I’ll be watching.

There really is one and only one reason that Obama is even giving this speech, and that is because of his clearly telegraphed desire to troll conservatives for the next two years. He is going to try, in classic Alinsky style, to win the debate by trolling the other side into overreacting. This is the only play he has left. And this is his first and best opportunity to set the tone. He’s already set the table with his preposterous free community college proposal.

The trick is to realize that nothing he says tonight is even intended to be serious, and act accordingly. I would frankly not be surprised if he declared that it was his intention to give everyone in America a free supply of mayonnaise or to declare via executive order that the only condiment that can be put on hot dogs is ketchup. He doesn’t mean these things and even if he does, he knows they have no chance of occurring. All he is trying to do is to make middle of the road Americans uncomfortable with associating with the rhetoric of his opponents by making said rhetoric as overblown as possible.

So relax. If you for some reason feel compelled to subject yourself to President Borat’s shtick tonight, don’t let it catapult you into fits of intemperate rage, at least in public. Criticize if you must but be reasoned and of good cheer about what he says. Optimism still wins the day with the people who decide Presidential elections.