President Trump, now sworn in for his second term, is the epitome of a blowhard. Merriam-Webster’s definition of “an arrogantly and pompously boastful or opinionated person” is a pen portrait of him, and it has been his brand since his early days as a real estate mogul in the 1970s.
Since Trump first announced his candidacy for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination almost a decade ago, we have become numb to his outlandish rhetoric and inflammatory propositions, from his lies about where President Barack Obama was born to his suggestions that the Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed for treason.
Having won reelection, Trump has turned his eye to the sort of territorial expansion that went out of vogue more than a century ago. He has suggested that Canada would become the 51st state of the Union, threatened to seize control of the Panama Canal and stated that America’s “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for national security.
Some of Trump’s acolytes have tried to reassure audiences horrified by these wild claims and irrational demands, arguing that it is mere hyperbole used for electoral effect and that his actions in office will be more measured and circumspect. Journalist Salena Zito described this dilemma in the Atlantic in 2016: “When he makes claims like this, the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.”
Presidential inaugurations are symbolic as well as practical. While the ceremony marks the handover of executive power from one president to the next, it also gives the newly elected leader the best platform he will likely ever have to set out the guiding principles of his administration.
Think of President John F. Kennedy’s rallying cry, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country,” which set a tone of high-minded service; or Ronald Reagan’s call for “our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds.”
We are entitled to look for clues in Trump’s second inaugural address. Would the new president set aside his wild campaigning slogans and prove that he might have been serious, but not literal? Would he make the transition from candidate to incumbent once again, and pose as the nation’s unifier?
No. Trump promised his audience that a “golden age of America begins right now,” and that “we will be the envy of every nation.” He intends to create “a nation that is proud, prosperous and free,” “stronger and more exceptional than ever before.” But the president is not a man of generous spirit or one who seeks to heal wounds. If onlookers want to be part of this new America, it was made indisputably clear that they must fall in line.
Trump spared no criticism of his predecessor, Joe Biden, or his defeated rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, both sitting a few feet away. The election had been a mandate to reverse what he called “a horrible betrayal,” whereby “a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.”
To revive the U.S., Trump promised a “revolution of common sense.” Mexican drug cartels are to be designated as foreign terrorist organizations; the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 will be invoked to deal with illegal immigrants; the armed forces will be deployed to the border with Mexico to deal with “this disastrous invasion of our country”; the government is withdrawing (again) from the Paris Climate Accords.
He quickly signed executive orders to scrap diversity, equity and inclusion programs, recognize only two genders under federal law, rename the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America” and return Denali to its previous name of Mount McKinley.
The Panama Canal? “We’re taking it back.”
This is apparently a divine mission for Trump, who said of the assassination attempt last July that “my life was saved for a reason. … I was saved by God to make America great again.” Opposition will not be brooked, but will be “annihilated by this great momentum” and Americans will “not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.”
On the evidence of his inaugural address, those who did not take Trump literally were fooling themselves. He meant what he said, however outlandish, aggressive, impetuous or simply preposterous, and the power of his determination should not be underestimated. With a Democratic Party in denial about its defeat on all fronts, Republican majorities in the Senate and the House and a solidly conservative Supreme Court, Trump has the means at his disposal to achieve many of his ambitions.
It is easy to lampoon the president. He has the arrogance and paranoia of a spoiled child, seeing enemies everywhere and believing someone is always seeking to take advantage of him, but also that he can change the world by fiat. His most fervent supporters were delighted by his uncompromising and assertive address, but his opponents should pay close attention.
Sometimes we mock in an attempt to diminish and defang. Those who did not listen to Trump during the campaign must listen now. He makes no secret of the kind of America he wants to see, nor of his determination to bring it about. As matters stand, he holds most of the cards.
Eliot Wilson is a freelance writer on politics and international affairs and the co-founder of Pivot Point Group. He was senior official in the U.K. House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including serving as a clerk of the Defence Committee and secretary of the U.K. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.