Trump’s State of the Union address tonight is likely to be, in the politest way I can put it, fucking ridiculous. Very similar, I’d imagine, in its repetitiveness and oversimplicity, to the song “Gucci Gang,” which, while it’s a fine thing for Mr. Pump to have made, is not quite so suitable for one in Mr. Trump’s station.

I would say, “Do yourself a favor and don’t watch it.” I would say, “Pursue a more valuable activity, like watching trains rust or softly sniffing bleach fumes,” but such negativity is likely to come barreling at you from all sides anyway, so I’m gonna say something different: Let’s let Czech novelist Milan Kundera and Jewish rapper Lil’ Dicky give us the real State of the Union.

“How can they,” you ask, “when Milan Kundera is so scared of planes that he’s never been to the Union?” To which I shall respond, do you need to have been to the sun to know that it’s hot? No? Perfect. Moving on.

Kundera writes, in his definition of the term “temps modernes” near the end of The Art of the Novel, “I run into problems with this term in the United States[…]In Europe, we are living the end of the Modern Era[…]This sense of ending America does not feel.” Rather, he concludes the entry with the idea that “America has other criteria for beginnings and endings.” Indeed. But in the immortal words of Young Busco, what are those?

Here’s where Lil’ Dicky comes to our rescue. In his “Pillow Talking,” Mr. Dicky sums up the rift between the European and American eras of transition in one spectacularly expansive line: “Bitch don’t know ‘bout Pangaea!” Indeed, she don’t. NPR columnist Adam Frank elaborates and globalizes Lil’ Dicky’s insight like so: “The other nations whom we must collaborate with and compete against are not wasting endless hours rehashing arguments over the foundations of biological science.”

Nietzsche declared in 1882 that “God is dead,” and maybe He was...in Europe. Meanwhile the United States still had 78 years until it would get far enough over its particularly stark brand of Protestantism to elect even a Catholic president. It would be 126 years until our first and only nonchristian president, an immensely overqualified Muslim.

The United States is currently undergoing Europe’s 1880s. Religion is finally on its deathbed but is kicking and screaming harder and louder the more it awakens to the realization of its own mortality: Hence the absolutely rabid religious rhetoric of our Republican (read: Christian Nationalist) party. Nationalism is quite clearly on the rise.

History doesn’t repeat itself but plays variations on themes. Nevertheless, we should probably oppose things like the proposed registry of Muslims, because that feels way too much like a reprise of you-know-exactly-what-so-I’m-not-even-gonna-say-it-again. Good news, though, is that we should expect America’s Kafka in the next couple decades. Maybe it’s Lil’ Dicky.