WASHINGTON — President Trump promised an inaugural address focused on “unity,” but what he delivered was more a campaign speech in a formal suit — long on promises and anger toward opponents, short on gestures toward national reconciliation.
“For American citizens, Jan. 20, 2025, is Liberation Day,” he said — meaning liberation from a Democratic administration that (in his telling) “extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken.”
“From this moment on, American decline is over,” he promised.
And he hinted darkly at what was behind his criminal prosecutions and two assassination attempts. “Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and, indeed, to take my life.”
Parts of Trump’s speech closely echoed his 2017 inaugural address — the one that dwelled on “American carnage.”
To be fair, the new president offered a hopeful vision as well — embodied in the promises he made during his campaign.
“The golden age of America begins right now,” he said. And for voters already persuaded that Trump will make America great again, it was an inspiring list. He promised not only to halt inflation, but reduce prices; increase manufacturing jobs and take automobile production to record highs; and end illegal immigration quickly and completely.
And to give his administration a dramatic start, he said that he would sign dozens of executive orders, including decrees to prohibit migrants from applying for asylum, end “birthright citizenship,” open more federal lands and waters to drilling for oil and gas, and declare that the federal government will recognize “only two sexes — male and female” — on official documents.
He also promised — officially, this time — to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
Some of the orders are certain to be challenged in court. Others will be largely symbolic. But they appeared intended to convey an image of unstoppable momentum.
Between his inauguration and a second speech in the Capitol — in which he called one critic “a crying lunatic” and another “guilty as hell” — the first day of his second term confirmed that there is no Trump 2.0.
But there may be a Trump 1.5, better organized than the chaotic Trump of his first term.
What Trump meant by “unity,” it turned out, is not bipartisanship, but uniform support behind the policies and goals he campaigned for.
“My recent election is a mandate,” he said. “As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda.”
But that’s just a hopeful bit of salesmanship. Yes, he won the popular vote, although he fell just short of 50%. But a string of public opinion polls has shown that public support for Trump’s policies — the normal meaning of “mandate” — is not as robust as he claimed.
An Associated Press poll this month found that although 8 in 10 American adults support Trump’s goal of deporting undocumented immigrants who are guilty of violent crimes, fewer than half back deporting anyone else. Only 3 in 10 agree with Trump’s proposal to end birthright citizenship, guaranteed in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
The poll also found that only 3 in 10 back his plan to open federal lands to oil and gas drilling.
There’s one more problem with the mandate the president claims.
Voters’ top priorities are lower prices and a stronger border, polls found. On those, Trump has set bars for his performance that look impossibly high.
He said he will order his Cabinet to “rapidly bring down costs and prices.”
Thanks to his border policies, he promised “all illegal entry will immediately be halted.”
And — in his most utopian moment — he promised that restored U.S. military power “will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable.”
“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” he said.
Those are admirable goals, and if Trump can bring them about, he will justly be hailed as both peacemaker and unifier.
But it’s one thing to propose lofty aims, and another to deliver on them.
Just ask Joe Biden.
