Trump gave a largely lackluster inaugural address peppered with typical MAGA rhetoric, followed by a rambling speech reminding Americans the 2020 election was rigged, Liz Cheney is a “crying lunatic,” and other well-worn, petty gripes.
We’ve heard most of that already.
Ad nasueam.
For what feels like centuries at this point.
But Trump did do something only Trump would do: give a second, unscripted, inaugural address riddled with conspiracies and hatefulness lasting longer and overshadowing his formal, post-oath remarks.
“From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world,” said Trump at the outset of his first inaugural address today.
From there, his speech contained the usual Trump talking points we’ve heard many, many times with very few off-script flourishes.
“We have a government that has given unlimited funding to the defense of foreign borders but refuses to defend American borders, or, more importantly, its own people,” he said, spelling out his more isolationist, America First ambitions carried over from his first term.
In his second speech, Trump’s trademark “weave” (i.e., rambling) bounced from the border – spending several minutes pondering aloud wall designs – Hillary’s unhappiness, the 2020 Election for a really long time, and a bunch of other unintelligible gibberish.
The first speech was clearly one Trump had never seen or perhaps only glanced at briefly in the limo from the White House to the Capitol, the same way I used to cram for tests on the way to school.
Still, it was a complete denunciation of the Biden agenda including a rollback of the Green New Deal and other environmental measures we knew Trump would kill, so no surprises there.
Shades of Trump’s true nature did shine through in the first address with his professed obsession with taking back the Panama Canal despite promising the United States wouldn’t get into foreign wars. I guess bullying a tiny country doesn’t count as an overseas war folly.
Then, this ignorant remark received perhaps the loudest applause of his formal address:
“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” said Trump in a shot across the bow of the trans community.
The totality of Trump's two speeches did not sit well with Postindustrial Arts Columnist Tamara White:
I woke this morning feeling less angry and anxious than I expected, mainly because it's been a slow burn toward today,” writes White. “However, after hearing Trump's speech, I immediately felt sick to my stomach. My anger found a resurgence as my heart sank for women, LGBTQ, and migrant communities, for our climate, and for democracy that is not run by a group of oligarchs.”
Healthcare Columnist Mike Stancil parsed the Trump remarks with his trademark skepticism/pessimism about how the healthcare industry will react.
Trump has promised for years a “concept” for replacing the Affordable Care Act with “something better,” though never delivering.
“As with all things in politics, it has very little to do with what they say, but rather who they listen to,” Stancil notes.
“What isn't different is that the conversation at the policy level with healthcare industry insiders and lobbyist groups is focused on what it is always focused on: how do they package their recommendations in a way that it can look like a win for the current leadership.”
“Rural Whisperer” Mark Yonkman contends that the first Trump address was “measured by Trump standards and at points forward-looking and hopeful.”
“It was in the President’s second speech he made informally after the Inauguration that he aired more of his traditional grievances. Interestingly, he noted that it wasn’t inflation that got him the vote. I agree with that,” he adds.
“Say what you will about President Trump; he has an uncanny ability to discern what actually bothers people.”
Excellent points all around and ones I’ll keep in mind as the next four years of Trump unfolds in more norm-breaking, centuries-seeming, ways than we ever thought imaginable.
