No vision to achieve vision of greatness
OK, world, you’ve been warned. Donal d Trump — U. S. President Donald Trump — didn’t mince words. He’s not putting up with any more pussyfooting. From now on it will be America first, America only and America always. Oh, and by the way, he’s going to do a great job.
Anyone who expected Trump to mellow with victory, be humbled by the moment or conciliatory towards critics just got an introduction to reality. The new president used his inaugural address to denounce just about everyone and everything that went before him, even while most of its architects sat behind him clapping politely.
“From this day forward a new vision will govern our land,” he proclaimed. “From this day forward it’s going to be America first. America first.”
Jobs will be brought back to the country. Self- serving politicians will be purged. Terrorists will be crushed. All those people and entities that have taken advantage of America under previous, less determined leadership will now learn what a strong and determined president can do. “The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the moment for action.”
To a certain degree there was nothing new in the address, delivered to a crowd sheltering from rain under umbrellas and plastic covering. It repeated the main themes of Trump’s campaign: the determination to exert American power, to re-assert its economic sway around the world, to seize back Washington from a privileged and self-serving elite and rededicate it to the interests of “the people.” Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator who challenged Hillary Clinton from the left, couldn’t have sounded more radically devoted to the redistribution of power and wealth than Trump did Friday in Washington.
What was remarkable, though perhaps it shouldn’t have been, was the ferocity of the delivery, the aggressiveness of the message and the apparent contempt Trump feels for the people who shared the stage with him and the way they’ve used the power he now holds. “For too long a small group of people in our nation’s capital have reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost,” he declared. “Politicians prospered but the jobs left and the factories closed… The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their hands and redistributed across the world.”
As he said this, his back was turned, quite literally, to the most powerful political leaders in the country — three former presidents, the members of their cabinets, the most senior Congressional leaders of both parties, the justices of the Supreme Court, the members of the Republican party who will now be tasked with getting Trump’s agenda translated into law… If he’d bent over and passed gas on all of them he couldn’t have made his feelings any more clear.
They had, in his view, collectively failed the people they were dedicated to serving. They forgot about ordinary working families. They let U.S. power wither abroad. They allowed foreigners, and some conniving U. S. companies, to exploit U.S. laws to America’s disadvantage.
But not any more. “America will start winning again, winning like never before,” he pledged. “We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American ... Every decision … will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries, making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs.” Overseas, America will “unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will completely eradicate from the face of the earth.”
How he will go about it remains unclear. In the weeks leading up to Friday’s inauguration, one Trump cabinet nominee after another testified they don’t share many of his most fundamental beliefs.
Rex Tillerson, the nominee for secretary of State, said Moscow represents a serious threat to the U.S. and only reacts to strength.
While Trump has been denouncing NATO as “obsolete,” Defense Secretary-designate James Mattis, a retired Marine general, says the alliance is vital to U.S. interests. Scott Pruitt, Trump’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, says climate change is no hoax.
So, which administration will Americans get over the next four years? One in which capable appointees follow rational policies in co- operation with skilled, long-time allies in pursuit of shared commercial and strategic goals? Or one in which Trump delivers fire- and-brimstone warnings to America’s perceived challengers? If Trump’s trade representative explains that ripping up NAFTA would disrupt the intricately interconnected web created by the auto industry to provide the best cars at the lowest prices — putting tens of thousands of U.S. jobs at risk — will Trump go ahead and rip it up anyway? Or will he let sensible commercial ties continue as long as he gets to tweet a few rude remarks about the CEO of General Motors, and get a Mexican factory or two shut down?
It’s anyone’s guess. The fact that nothing Trump says can be taken at face value has already become an identifying feature of his leadership. It may be that, somewhere beneath the thin skin and the massive ego, he recognizes the limits of his own capabilities and is willing to let more experienced hands handle the day-to-day details while he looks on and guides from above. On Friday, he left little doubt he considers himself capable of bringing it all about, promising his followers they are “part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never see before.”
Bigger than the American Revolution itself. Bigger than the rise of democracy. It’s going to be yuge. If nothing else, no one can say Trump didn’t warn them.