Sen. Adam Schiff is boycotting President Trump's State of the Union address next week and will instead attend a counter rally on the National Mall organized by MoveOn and MeidasTouch, an event dubbed the "People's State of the Union."

Schiff posted a video to X explaining his decision, casting the boycott as an act of conscience. He joins at least seven Senate colleagues and at least 20 House Democrats who have announced plans to skip the address, which is slated for Tuesday night.

"Donald Trump is violating the law and Constitution. He is ignoring court orders. He has weaponized the Justice Department to go after his enemies. He is letting loose ICE troops in our streets that are getting people killed. I will not be attending the State of the Union."

Schiff added that he has never missed a State of the Union or an inauguration, but insisted the current moment demands something different.

"I've never missed one. I have always gone, both to inaugurations and to States of the Union. But we cannot treat this as normal. This is not business as usual."

He vowed not to give Trump the "audience he craves for the lies that he tells."

The Growing Boycott List

According to the Washington Examiner, Schiff is far from alone. Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tina Smith of Minnesota, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Patty Murray of Washington have all announced plans to skip the speech. On the House side, at least 20 Democrats will be absent, according to NOTUS. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has urged House Democrats who do attend to sit in "silent defiance."

So the options on offer from Democratic leadership are: don't show up, or show up and pout.

Protest as Performance

There's a familiar rhythm to this. A Republican president prepares to address a joint session of Congress. Democrats discover they cannot, in good conscience, participate in the rituals of democratic governance. A counter event materializes, complete with progressive advocacy groups and a name designed to sound grassroots. The cameras roll. The fundraising emails write themselves.

Schiff's rhetoric is worth examining on its own terms. He claims ICE is "getting people killed" in American streets. He offers no names, no incidents, no dates, no locations. The accusation simply floats there, unmoored from evidence, designed to provoke rather than inform. This is the kind of statement that would earn breathless fact-checks if a Republican made it. From Schiff, it passes without scrutiny into the media ecosystem as accepted context.

He claims the Justice Department has been "weaponized" against political enemies. This is from the man who spent the better part of Trump's first term promising the American public that definitive evidence of Russian collusion was just around the corner. Schiff sat on the House Intelligence Committee and made himself a fixture on cable news with claims that aged poorly and were never retracted. His relationship with the weaponization of government institutions is not the one he thinks it is.

What the Boycott Actually Accomplishes

Here's what skipping the State of the Union does not do:

• It does not block a single executive order.
• It does not advance legislation.
• It does not change a single policy outcome.
• It does not move a single voter who wasn't already in the Democratic base.

Here's what it does: it gives progressive organizations like MoveOn and MeidasTouch a senator-grade headliner for their counter-programming. It generates content. It lets Schiff position himself as the conscience of the resistance, a brand he has been building since 2017.

The State of the Union is one of the few remaining moments when elected officials from both parties sit in the same room while the president lays out an agenda before the American people. It is not an endorsement. It is not a loyalty oath. Members of Congress have attended speeches from presidents they loathed, presidents they worked to defeat, presidents whose policies they believed were genuinely dangerous. They attended because the institution demanded it, and because being present is the prerequisite for holding power accountable.

Schiff says this moment is different. That this is "not business as usual." Democrats said the same thing during Trump's first term. They said it during the George W. Bush years. At some point, every Republican presidency becomes the unprecedented emergency that justifies abandoning norms while simultaneously lamenting the erosion of norms.

The Audience They're Really Playing To

Jeffries' urging "silent defiance" from those who do attend tells you everything about the political calculation. The goal is not engagement. It is not oversight. It is optics. Democrats who show up are instructed to perform disapproval for the cameras. Democrats who stay away are performing it from a rally stage on the Mall.

Neither version involves doing the actual work of opposition: crafting legislation, building coalitions, winning arguments on the merits. It is politics reduced to posture.

Schiff insists he won't give Trump the audience he craves. But a chamber full of sitting senators performing their constitutional role is not a gift to the president. It is the bare minimum of democratic participation. Walking out doesn't diminish the speech. It diminishes the senator.

Trump will deliver his address Tuesday night. The chamber will be full enough. The counter rally will draw its crowd, the clips will circulate, and by Wednesday morning, the whole exercise will have changed precisely nothing. Except that Adam Schiff will have reminded everyone, once again, that the performance is the point.