We were promised a "philosophical" and "personal" inauguration from President Donald Trump. On a rainy Washington day, in front of a relatively small crowd, Donald Trump aspired to ape two of his heroes, Ronald Reagan and JFK. Nearly two million people turned out for Barack Obama’s inaugural address, only half a million came to see Donald Trump become the 45th President of the Republic. "We are transferring power from Washington DC, and giving it back to you, the people" he told the fervent audience, while big crowds protested his presidency. "The time for empty talk is over" he said, in a speech big on anger and criticism of Washington, big on empty patriotism, but - unlike his heroes - low on memorable rhetoric or new ideas.
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Through a distracting sniffle, Trump complained that "Washington flourished" while "the establishment protected itself" the people suffered, and that "their victories were not your victories." Claiming that this "all changes right here and right now" he assured his supporters that "this moment is your moment. It belongs to you. It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America."
Donald Trump’s inauguration as President was never going to go painlessly. The Republican candidate and his team fought a vicious battle for the Presidency, and having won the war so brutally, he could not expect a tidy peace. Reports of rioting in downtown Washington accompanied his criticism of "the crime and the gangs and the drugs" that Trump attacked in his speech, describing it as an "American carnage" that "stops right here and stops right now." No cogent explanation of how this would happen was given.
Trump’s central theme, if there was one, was that the past was a different, better country, and that America will do things differently there. There was only negativity about the state of the world, and only negativity about the state of America. Trump attacked the way America had "subsidised foreign armies while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military" claiming that America has "defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own" and making "other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon." No evidence for this was presented. Trump’s entire address was a series of lines, with very little attempt to string together a cohesive speech. He employed repetition, but there was nothing in the speech which even flirted with a definite vision.
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Trump’s most memorable moment was his statement that "from this day forward a new vision will govern our land... America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families," but even this was empty rhetoric. There was little to pin Trump down on, except perhaps for his claim that "I will fight for you with every breath in my body and I will never, ever let you down."
Donald Trump made no efforts to reach out to Democrats, no effort to unify, and at times he went on the attack against both foreign countries and other faiths. He promised to "eradicate Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth" while killing irony with the claim that "when you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice," after running a divisive campaign that fed off prejudice, lived on the support of the most prejudiced parts of American society.
In time, the best we can hope for from his Presidency is that Trump will underwhelm his supporters, and avoid the worst excesses feared by his critics. The best we can hope for, on the basis of this angry, empty speech is that he will be a shabby, shameful president. Donald Trump - a man who probably thinks that the US national motto "e pluribus unum" (out of many, one) means that out of many there is one victor - delivered a series of bullet points, but none of it stuck. At times the Trump campaign has felt like an assault on taste, and this speech did nothing to improve his image.
President Trump is a monster created by fear: fear of change, fear of the new, fear of the technological and social disruptions of the past decades. His speech reflected those fears, particularly with the reassurances over border security that he gave. Candidate Trump was smartest when diagnosing the problems in American society of corruption, and insider politics. He was dumbest when he thought that he would be the solution. Today he showed no novel insight, no new solutions.
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Trump ended with a neat but predictable rhetorical flourish, claiming: "We will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again, and yes together we will make America great again.”
During the campaign, Trump promised to build a wall that Mexico would pay for. He didn’t repeat the claim today. Like most of his promises it will come to nothing, but he has already built walls in American society, in the minds of his supporters, and between America and the rest of the world. We will all pay for those walls for a long time to come.
