It finally happened. Trump has been sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. Overall, the tone for Inauguration Day was bleak. Cold and rainy, the setting could not have been more appropriate for the speech that was about to take place. Compared to Obama’s speech given in 2009, Trump's speech was something of oversimplification and paranoia-- basically, the work of chief strategist Steve Bannon and senior advisor Stephen Miller. Bannon was even quoted in saying, “I don’t think we’ve had a speech like that since Andrew Jackson came to the White House. It’s got a deep root in patriotism.” Bannon was a controversial pick for Trump's team because of his work on the right-wing "Breitbart News." He has also had ties to white nationalists and was seen by some as a significant threat to minority rights.
Now that you have context for this speech, you can understand why its tone was so dreary. Trump ran his campaign on fixing a broken America, and he says we are “now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country.” From what? Our country is in a great state right now, the economy is doing way better than when Obama took the reins from Bush in 2009, and our gross domestic product is plus 1.7 percent since Bush's negative 3.5 percent. Thanks to the deregulation of Wall Street by Regan and Bush senior, the 2008 recession hit with a massive blow to not only our economy, but to the American psyche. When I think about the Recession and how it could have potentially led to a second Great Depression, I think about Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR did a lot in his administration; from Medicare to Social Security, he did what he had to do to save our country. Similar to how Obama had to pass the stimulus, FDR’s policies were ultimately the policies the Republican party tried to diminish.
Trump then goes on to quote Bane from "The Dark Night Rises" when he says, “We are transferring power from Washington, D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.” In the movie, this is the point in time when Bane takes over Gotham with a series of terroristic bombings. Furthermore, Trump talks about America as if it were the plot to some weird science fiction thriller, “rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation…. And the crime, and the gangs, and the drugs… This American carnage stops right here.” Trump is basically painting himself as the answer to the rhetorical exigence that is the domestic United States. He solidifies this when he states the mantra for his policies, which is “America First.” Now, I know a lot of my conservative friends are leaping for joy over this concept, but it is outdated. What is this? World War II? The Cold War? No. We do not live in the same world as we did in the 1950s. Global politics has changed since then, which is why we were living in a more multipolar world in contrast to the unipolar hegemonic world Trump wants to be in.
Furthermore, the “American carnage” clause is important, because this will be the overall framing of Trump's domestic policies-- policies that could include increasing the militarization of police forces, increasing the use of stop and frisk practices, and exacerbating extreme judicial rules like mandatory minimum sentences. Basically, everything that both Lynch and Holder accomplished in the Department of Justice is about to be ransacked by both Trump and Jeff Sessions. Trump's response to this carnage is going to maintain the same tropes that the conservative party just can’t seem to let go. I would argue that these policies will be largely a reflection of Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon when dealing with crime within the United States.
Overall, Trump’s speech was empty-- empty of sympathy, empty of tolerance, and empty of our greatest American values. In just a few executive orders Trump has demonstrated his policies clearly. These orders include making it easier to dismantle Obamacare, and to suspend the Federal Housing Administrations policy to decrease insurance premiums for low-income homeowners. If this is day one, then his future policies are going to be even more devastating. Not to mention his first press conference was the most undemocratic thing I have ever seen. Spicer, the new press spokesman, literally lectured the media without taking any questions. It seems that we might be living in some sort of twisted dream, where populism and nonsense take the lead over logic and reason. The only good thing? Only four more years!
