The second act of Donald J Trump began with a bold, declarative promise issued in the august setting of the Rotunda room of the US Capitol building. “The golden age of America begins right now,” the 47th president said in opening the inauguration address that will, in future, serve as a companion piece to his speech from eight years ago.
And so American history spins towards a new unguessable chapter. Monday brought an hour of dizzying change in Washington, DC, which was sparkling and icy on a sunny morning when the mercury never rose above minus 5 degrees.
President Joe Biden, ever the believer in the institution and traditions of government, was there on the steps of the White House with first lady Jill Biden to greet Trump as he arrived for the customary tea ceremony with his wife and next first lady, Melania Trump. The old place looked snowy and fabulous.
Biden was heard to say “welcome home” to the president-elect. After unrelenting bitterness, cordiality. The couples stood chatting in the frigid, blustery morning before retreating to the Blue Room. When they re-emerged, Biden gave the presidential car, The Beast, a quick good-luck pat before disappearing behind the tinted windows for the short journey to the Capitol in the company of his successor.
Inside the Rotunda, the strange carnival of allies Trump acquired during his extraordinary election campaign was already there: his tech billionaire and confidante-in-chief Elon Musk, other tech titans including Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, and Robert F Kennedy’s son Bobby were prominent among future cabinet members and the Republican members of congress who fully believe in the magnetic cult of Trump now, if they did not before.
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Across the dais, Biden sat alongside defeated candidate Kamala Harris. Behind them were the three living presidents. After Trump recited the brief oath of office, Biden swelled their ranks to four. As they listened to the 47th’s speech, their faces turned as still and stony as the regal statues of the long-gone presidents surrounding them.
“From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world,” the new president promised.
“As we gather today our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, 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. We now have a government that cannot even manage a simple crisis at home while at the same time stumbling into a continual catalogue of catastrophic events abroad.”
In short, president Trump made his adversaries sit through a formal version of his campaign furies as he struck a sombre tone of vindication and providential intercession.
“Over the past eight years I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250 year history and I have learned a lot along the way. The journey to reclaim our republic has not been an easy one. Those who wished to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom and indeed to take my life. Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”
Whatever about that, there is no question that American politics has never before encountered a force like Trump. In the winter of last year, Nikki Haley, who for a short while represented the last voice of the old Republican Party, warned that her former boss stood for “chaos”. She – and the Democrats – failed to realise that it turned out that the majority of Americans want just that energy: an instant disruption of the old, chugging-along political order.
Now, in his first speech, Trump doubled down on his promises: to declare a state of emergency at the border; to lower the costs of living; to resume drilling for oil and gas; to “completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal ... and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and, indeed, their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”
The occasion was defined by the exquisite symbolism of the setting. The Rotunda is the hallowed centre point of the Capitol, which Maga supporters smashed their way into while denying Trump’s presidential defeat four years ago. Now, here he stood: president again.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan, delivering the invocation, referenced “General George Washington on his knees at Valley Forge”, which bore an eerie echo of Biden’s first campaign speech just under a year ago. Biden had his eyes squeezed shut at that minute but must have seen a torrent of images.
A slew of executive orders would follow over the course of the chilly day. President Biden, meanwhile, issued preemptive pardons to his siblings, Jimmy, Francis and Valerie Owens, and their spouses in his final few moments in office. The timing puzzled even his fiercest loyalists.
Americans rightly pride themselves in their devotion to the democratic tradition. But their adherence to the dazzling pageantry of presidential ceremony eclipses the best efforts of old European monarchy for sheer lavishness and choreography. This icy, strained Inauguration Day was rich with human drama – and the abiding American theme of defeat and redemption.
It was something to see the Trumps and Bidens parting ways before the 46th president boarded a helicopter and was flown out of the Capitol, bound for a holiday in California. The end comes quickly in politics. Biden was gone from office in an hour and gone from Washington after 50 years, even as the sun shone on the first day of Trump’s promised golden age.
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