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“Donald Trump has been sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, beginning his second term in the White House after a decisive comeback in November's election. In his 29-minute inauguration speech, Trump promised to restore the American dream while also warning of what he described as chaos and destruction left by the previous administration.” BBC
The left criticizes the speech, and argues that the country is already doing well.
“[Trump] proclaimed the day to be the start of a ‘golden age of America,’ a time when the country will ‘flourish and be respected again.’ He promised to make the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous dream a ‘reality’ and said he wanted to be ‘a peacemaker and a unifier.’ Americans can easily agree with such goals…
“Not everything he said was so easy to agree on. One point in particular calls out for correction. ‘America’s decline is over,’ Trump said. And later, speaking of the assassination attempts against him last year, ‘I was saved by God to make America great again.’ The truth is, America is already great and objectively not in decline. This is not to say it isn’t in need of repair…
“But he is inheriting a vibrant economy that has nimbly recovered from the covid-19 pandemic on practically every measure — unemployment, economic growth, cooling inflation — and is already the envy of the world. He has a responsibility to make sure that his policies do not endanger it through tariffs and poorly conceived deportations of undocumented immigrants.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
“Trump described various imaginary crises in his speech. He said he’s declaring ‘a national emergency at our southern border,’ [which] has been fairly quiet since now-former President Joe Biden effectively halted asylum claims in June. Trump said he’s directing his cabinet ‘to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices.’ The inflation spike ended nearly three years ago, inflation is currently below 3 percent, and (incidentally) any economy where ‘costs and prices’ come down across the board is by definition a failing one.”
Timothy Noah, New Republic
“Trump’s swearing-in at the Capitol Rotunda, driven indoors by frigid weather, offered certain benefits of clarity—illuminating, among other things, who rates in his second Administration and who does not. The image of America’s wealthiest men—Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg—standing in front of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and right behind Trump’s own children, was a revealing chart of power in the new Washington…
“The absence of a cheering throng of Trump’s MAGA supporters only reinforced the notion of an emergent and dangerous tech ‘oligarchy,’ as Biden warned about last week…
“Past Presidents have used the occasion to speak of the better angels of our nature, to banish fear and summon the best of America. Trump offered ‘drill, baby, drill,’ and a pledge to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Previous Inaugurals have been brief, elegiac, inspirational; Trump’s was rambling, incoherent, and blustery. What, in the end, should we think about a speech that essentially threatened war against Panama but never even mentioned the deadly conflict in Europe that he once promised to end in his first twenty-four hours back in power?”
Susan B. Glasser, New Yorker
The right praises the speech, and supports the promised immigration crackdown.
The right praises the speech, and supports the promised immigration crackdown.
“Mr. Trump’s Second Inaugural Address may not go down in history alongside Abraham Lincoln’s. But it serves the president well as a prelude to what he plans next. Mr. Trump faces more daunting challenges now than he did coming into his first term. He’s also been through a great deal—an outrageous claim of Russian collusion, two failed impeachments, federal and state indictments and two assassination attempts. He pulled off the greatest political comeback in American history…
“It wouldn’t have been possible without [the] ordinary Americans who braved the freezing temperatures to be in Washington when their hero was inaugurated. So it was encouraging that in this inaugural address the emphasis was on two broad concerns: keeping Americans safe from threats abroad and ensuring opportunity and upward mobility at home… His choice to dwell on a new golden age instead of ‘American carnage’ is a sign of hope. And it is exactly what the 77.3 million who voted for him in November mean by Make America Great Again.”
William McGurn, Wall Street Journal
“Trump hit the ground running. He issued a battery of executive orders that his team had been preparing for months… Declaring a national emergency at the border, Trump pledged not only to restore his previous, successful policies such as ‘Remain in Mexico’ (which required asylum-seekers to wait outside the country) but also to deploy the military to the southern border and halt catch-and-release and refugee resettlement into the country…
“He’ll target Mexican cartels by designating them as foreign terrorist organizations and use a law signed by John Adams to go after [foreign] criminal gangs as alien enemies… There will be court fights ahead, but most of this is within the military and law enforcement powers of the president… The first time around, Trump often didn’t seem to understand what he had the power to do, and what he didn’t: Government is harder than it looks. But he’s readier this time.”
Dan McLaughlin, New York Post
“Trump described himself as an exemplar of common sense, and, indeed, on some key issues he captured the center last November. His pledges in his address to shut down the border, deport criminals, make it government policy that there are only two genders, and judge people on their merits rather than their race and gender are firmly in the middle of the American consensus, and not too long ago would have been utterly uncontroversial…
“Trump arrives back in Washington with the wind at his back. He’s relatively popular, corporate America has been accommodating, the Left’s reaction against him this time has been comparatively muted, and the legal actions against Trump have been winding down… With Joe Biden departing on a particularly low note, there is an appetite for something new.”
The Editors, National Review
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