Consistency is a word that comes to mind…
That moment has finally arrived that so many have dreaded over the last few months. Donald J. Trump has taken the oath of office and is now officially the 45th President of the United States of America. Political and personal views aside — and I’ve said this many times before — we should all want him to succeed for the country.
This is not to say we should support every decision he makes. It is not to say we should unite behind every policy that he pushes forward. And it is certainly not to say that we want him to follow through on the full list of campaign promises. It is to say we want whatever he does while in office to be of benefit to all Americans.
As I listened to his inaugural address there were several key things that jumped out at me which are worth discussing. Over the next four years it will be extremely interesting to come back to this and see how his message changes over time. There were also a few key things that surprised me which I will note.
Key Themes
Consistency. President Trump’s speech was if nothing else largely consistent with the campaign that he ran. He began with simple pleasantries that indicated a potentially softer tone, but very quickly he reverted back to the tone that we became familiar with during his campaign. He spoke about the “forgotten people” and the “terrible job” that has been done by the Washington establishment over many decades. He spoke about “Radical Islamic Terrorism”. He spoke about “making America great again”. He painted a dark picture of where we are today and spoke to how that will be fixed going forward.
Usage of “We”. Surprisingly, and in contrast to his previous speeches, he used the word we overwhelmingly. In his nomination acceptance speech, then candidate Donald Trump used the words “I” and “we” 67 and 60 times respectively. In this inaugural address he used the word “we” 43 times and the word “I” only 3. In the coming years it will be interesting to see if that trend continues.
It is also worth noting that the usage of the word “we” in both speeches was very different. In the nomination acceptance speech it was more often than not in the context of sentences like “what do we have to show”. In this address it was used more in the context of “we will”. While promising I have to wonder how consistent this will be throughout the next 4 years.
Populism/Patriotism. American first. It became very clear that under this administration that interests that benefit the whole world will be secondary to American interests. In fact, in this address it almost seemed as if America may be moving into more of an isolationists type mentality under this administration — “but American and hire American”.
This is something that resonated with Trump voters along the campaign trail to it is not particularly surprising, but it leaves us with concerns surrounding foreign policy and how these policies will affect our relationships globally.
Anti-establishment. “Washington has failed us” is the message that was sent by the President. Again consistent with his talks of “draining the swamp” on the campaign trail. It is slightly concerning how much he hammered on “failures” of Washington, but he did attempt to say that the “power would be returned to the people”. It is unclear what that means and how much that will hold true, especially considering his cabinet picks… More on those in a separate article.
Final Thoughts
The biggest thing missing from the President’s address was any discussion of uniting all Americans. He described us as one people, but did not really speak to how he would address the many concerns of the tens of millions of voters that did not vote for him. He did specifically address and thank the tens of millions of voters that elected him, but it was interesting that he did not seem to specifically address those that did not.
President Donald Trump will be our President for the next four years. We will see how his tone changes (or doesn’t) over those years. These big speeches, however, are but for show until actual action occurs. The actions that he takes and how he behaves as President will be our focus going forward.
We look forward to watching very closely.
