I lied about not planning to watch or listen to the Trump inauguration. I listened to the swearing in and to most of Trump’s speech while driving back to Wilton from West Orange, New Jersey. And then I heard portions of the speech.
The swearing-in itself seemed lame. Like a ten-year-old, Chief Justice Roberts had to read the words from a print-out — he couldn’t memorize it like Chief Justice Earl Warren did 60 years ago? And also like a ten-year-old, he restricted the pledge to almost comically short bursts. Back in ’61 Warren said to JFK “and [you] will, to the best of your ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”….good heavens, 17 words in a single breath!
Trump basically stuck me as being outside of his mind, and certainly lacking any semblance of humility. He apparently thinks he’s Alexander the Great mixed with Laurence Olivier‘s Mahdi in Khartoum…a holy, nation-correcting deliverer on some kind of anti-progressive, anti-woke cleansing crusade.
Melodramatic and grandiose, Trump’s speech lied about a lot of stuff, and he certainly exaggerated his ass off. But he’s been doing that all along.
“We will move with purpose and speed to bring back hope, prosperity, safety and peace for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed” — he was primarily referring to whiteys, trust me. “For American citizens, Jan. 20, 2025 is Liberation Day.” Translation: The party’s over, wokeys!
“Let mountain and desert tremble…let cities shudder…and let the corrupt in far places mark this moment and turn in fear of all the miracles to come…and let none in this great country in this victorious hour…let no one believe I am anyone other than The Expected One.”
Trump didn’t say this — Olivier did — but he was coming from a similar emotional place.
Trump proclaimed that he was really and truly spared by God when McLovin fired that would-be assassin’s bullet in rural Pennsylvania on 7.13.24. “I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason,” Trump said. “I was saved by God to make America great again.” This is crazy madman stuff…casting himself as a chosen man of destiny, determined to carry out and fulfill God’s plan.
“Under my leadership, we will restore fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law, and we are going to bring law and order back to our cities.” By setting free the animals who were sentenced to prison for attacking the Capitol on 1.6.21? That‘s “fair, equal and impartial justice”?
In an apparent allusion to the L.A. firestorm, Trump lambasted a government “that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home…without even a token of defense.” Tell that to the L.A. fire fighters who’ve been struggling and sweating their way through that godawful maelstrom, including the lesbians.
The U.S. is going to “take back” the Panama Canal? Trump can’t be so asinine as to believe this can actually happen.
“To restore competence and effectiveness to our federal government, my administration will establish the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency.” Okay, but what just happened to Vivek Ramaswany, who was supposed to co-manage DOGE with Elon?
Truth be told, I didn’t entirely mind some of the anti-woke stuff. Trump said that “we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves in many cases”…a reference to little white kids being taught that they’re the spawn of vicious racists and are basically the seed of primal evil. That’s not inaccurate.
And I kinda went “uh-huh” when he said he would “end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life…we will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based” — i.e., equity can take a hike.
But I don’t feel it’s right or fair to put transgender people through the bureaucratic ringer by insisting that their passports designate them as a bio-male or bio-female. “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” he said.
A friend believes that this latter passage will all but lock in Emilia Perez as the Best Picture Oscar-winner, which everyone will process as a unanimous fuck you to Trump by the Holl;ywood community.
