Trump's Inaugural Speech: Glimmers of Hope Amidst Exceptional Bluster

An impressionistic reflection of a surreal event

I watched Trump’s speech on C-SPAN via YouTube, and saw no one’s commentary before writing this, which means this is something of an experiment, but at least I’ll know I wasn’t just parroting anyone else.

I’ll begin with how I felt when the mercifully short(I remember Bill Clinton) speech ended:

Specifically,

• On a similar day in Washington in March, 1841, William Henry Harrison gave his inaugural address in weather much like that of today, developed pneumonia on top of who knows what else and died at the ripe old age of of 68.

• The even older Donald Trump’s people weren’t about to let that happen again, so the speech was given in the centrally heated Capitol Rotunda. Guess I can’t blame them much.

• I know Trump hadn’t been planning on that, for during the first few minutes he kept pausing for the expected MAGA applause, and got a few awkward seconds of silence, each time, before this way wealthier crowd figured out they were supposed to clap, which was kind of their way of telling MAGA

  

• That high-pitched, screeching and crashing sound you heard was the entire, probably multibillion $$$ DEI grift train running off the rails.

• You see, Trump said he was signing an executive order today banning all federal funding of DEI(Diversity Equity Inclusion) programs across the country

• I guess my county employer’s not going to try to force me to take that DEI training after all, and Trump is delivering on a campaign promise, so there’s that.

• Speaking of campaign promises, Trump mentioned every single political demographic group that bucked historical patterns and significantly voted more for him instead of the Democrat last year, including Latinos, Blacks, and auto workers. Smart politics there.

• He talked about the colossal failure of the federal government to respond to disasters such as the hurricane in North Carolina and the ongoing Los Angeles fires, saying

There are people in this room who lost their homes. Isn’t that interesting?

• Yes, it is, especially since they were people who could afford the hundred or so seats in the Capitol Rotunda. Elon Musk was standing to the side, if that gives you any indication of what a well-heeled gathering the immediate crowd was.

• Trump said he would send troops to seal the southern border. Exactly what that means remains to be seen.

• There was so much American Exceptionalism in this speech I felt like I’d sat through a John Wayne & Ronald Reagan movie marathon by its end, but its primary real world impact will be in making liberal heads explode.

• All the America is Exceptional and Manifest Destiny and We Will Expand Our Territory stuff is just Trump’s opening bargaining position on several different things, including

  • He wants Panama to lower its fees on American shipping, particularly US Navy shipping since he mentioned it, and that’s really all he wants.

    • There are way too many wealthy American retirees in Panama to seriously consider a military invasion.

    • Joe Biden was actually awake during this part of the speech and he and Kamala were both smiling because they knew it would never happen.

  • Trump said he would name foreign, and implicitly Mexican, drug cartels as terrorist organizations, and I thought of all of the howling I would see about Trump wanting to invade Mexico.

    • No, he has no intention of invading Mexico. He’s just trying to rattle Claudia Sheinbaum’s nerves before negotiating for…whatever.

  • Trump wants access to the undersea oil and gas fields that probably exist off of Greenland’s coast. Again, talk of annexation is opening bluster, and Trump’s way of channeling Ronald Reagan’s Greatest Hits while promising Big Oil he’ll deliver.

• Trump talked, justifiably, about starting no new wars in his first term, said he would end some current ones and avoid some Harris would have gotten us into. He bragged about the Gaza ceasefire, but didn’t say “Israel” once.

  

• Trump never mentioned Russia or China or Europe. In fact, if memory serves, the only countries he mentioned by name were Mexico and Panama.

• Joe Biden may as well have been in Mexico or Panama; he slept through about half the speech, which really is kind of funny when you think about it.

• Political irony was wonderfully present. What a treat to see a Republican President proclaiming the creation of two brand new Federal government agencies, the External Revenue Service(to enforce tariffs, I suppose) and the Department of Government Efficiency(DOGE), which is an oxymoron proposed by the guy who wants to be the Doge of Earth and Mars.

  

• There were a couple of mild shots at Big Pharma and promises to end America’s “chronic disease epidemic,” so the existence of RFK Jr. was at least implied.

• Perhaps the nicest immediate thing Trump did was to reinstate everyone in the military who was forced out because they refused to take the Covid jab. With full back pay.

  

• Drill Baby Drill! is back.

• Are hats going to make a fashion comeback? Melania and several women were actually sporting them. I like hats.

• The transgender psyop, fad, and grifting operation is also dead, and Trump said he would change the federal definition of gender to male and female only, so that is most likely that and good riddance to absurdly distracting rubbish that is harmful to children.

• God was mentioned a lot. So what? God’s usually mentioned a lot by American presidents, but this is the first time in a long time one could claim to be spared by the deity for a reason, and who knows? Trump might even believe it for a couple of hours a day.

• Besides, there was no way he could give that speech without mentioning

  

• Trump remembered it was Martin Luther King Day, and said he would make MLK’s dream come true by working for a colorblind society.

  • That is a perfectly valid interpretation of King’s request to be judged by the content of his character instead of the color of his skin.

• Trump promised to make America a manufacturing nation again.

  

• He did say he would end all federal censorship of things like social media, end persecution of political opponents by the Justice Department, and respect the Constitution, specifically the rights of free speech and religion.

  

And it really would be. I don’t know what Trump’s going to do. I don’t know that Trump knows what he’s going to do, but for what it’s worth, he did immediately do a few things he said he was, and offered at least a glimmer of hope that maybe some things will get better.

Well, we’ll see what comes together. Meanwhile,

and maybe

Have a good day or night, and good luck.