I thought Donald Trump’s inaugural speech was pathetic. I am in agreement with George will for a change.
Donald Trump Inaugural Speech
Donald Trump gave one of the most disrespectful speeches I have ever heard. He disrespected President Obama, and the entire United States government. And the good old conservative icon was not amused. He excoriated the speech in the Washington Post.
Twenty minutes into his presidency, Donald Trump, who is always claiming to have made, or to be about to make, astonishing history, had done so. Living down to expectations, he had delivered the most dreadful inaugural address in history.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s White House counselor, had promised that the speech would be “elegant.” This is not the adjective that came to mind as he described “American carnage.” That was a phrase the likes of which has never hitherto been spoken at an inauguration.
Oblivious to the moment and the setting, the always remarkable Trump proved that something dystopian can be strangely exhilarating: In what should have been a civic liturgy serving national unity and confidence, he vindicated his severest critics by serving up reheated campaign rhetoric about “rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape” and an education system producing students “deprived of all knowledge.” Yes, all.
Will seemed resigned to the undemocratically illegitimately incompetent president but thankful to a governmental structure that limits the damage he is able to lay on us all.
A dependence on the people,” James Madison wrote, “is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” He meant the checks and balances of our constitutional architecture. They are necessary because, as Madison anticipated and as the nation was reminded on Friday, “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”
It was a hell of an indictment.