Trump Sets the Tone

A few days ago, many of us were wondering if Trump's inaugural speech would provide some reassurance to those of us who didn't vote for him.  We are more divided than at any time we can recall, and this is the perfect opportunity for a new president to reach out to our whole nation - to try to assuage some of the hard feelings, and let us know that he's there for all of us.  That's what we expect of any new president.  That would be the right thing to do.

But the Donald will have none of that.  Because this presidency isn't about bringing Americans together.  It's about taking control.  His message to the majority of Americans who didn't want to see him in office?  "We're in charge, and the things you care about are of no consequence.  The only people Trump reached out to are his cheering squad - his voters and political supporters. 

The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now. You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement, the likes of which the world has never seen before. - Trump

By "forgotten men and women", he is referring, of course, to those who voted him into office.  The ones who missed out on the economic recovery of the past several years that brought us back from the brink of disaster (left by the previous Republican administration for Obama to deal with) and created millions of new jobs.  These are people who lost their factory or coal mining jobs years ago and didn't have the intelligence or ambition to get into a different line of work (and it certainly isn't the case that there are no jobs available).  They prefer instead to blame their plight on liberals and environmentalists, minorities and immigrants.  Oh, and let's not forget the bigots of the alt-right who have been avid Trump supporters.  They may not have lost their jobs, but they still see America going to hell in a hand-basket simply because all the liberals, environmentalists, minorities and immigrants exist, and they can't stand it.

Along comes Trump to tell them that America really has become a horrible place, and it really is the fault of all those "others", and Uncle Donald is going to make it all better.  He's going to bring back those coal mining jobs, and he's going to make it acceptable to openly display your bigotry, just like it used to be in the good old days.  He's going to make America great again.  Why be concerned about his utter lack of knowledge or experience in government?  He's telling them what they want to hear.

His entire speech was a continuation of that same campaign rhetoric.  It was directed solely at those people.  It pits Us against Them, and makes no attempt whatsoever to bring everyone together.  There is no acknowledgment of the millions of people who didn't vote for Trump and are fearful of his policies.  There is no olive branch extended to those who were disparaged during his scorched-earth campaign.  There is no reason for the rest of us think that this divisive campaign has finally ended and he will now settle down to the business of running a government that serves all of us.

No, what we see in this speech is the promise that his horrible, divisive presidential campaign will continue while he's in office.  He'll pretend he's doing something for those "forgotten people", while screeching about the "others" on Twitter, and working for the betterment of himself and his rich cronies.  He's already taking credit for creating jobs that he had absolutely nothing to do with.  And if anything bad occurs (which will surely happen, because he doesn't have a clue what he's doing), it will be blamed on Obama, or it will be the fault of all of us who are the "others" - the ones who Trump wasn't speaking to in his inaugural address.  He has set the tone for what's to come, and the message came across loud and clear.

And today, some of those "others" came out to make their voices heard.  They came out in much larger numbers than the ones who attended Trump's inauguration speech.  And the Donald did his best to ignore them, just like he did yesterday in his inauguration speech.  As much as he wants to push millions of people aside and pretend they don't exist, they have no intention of letting him get away with it.  They are not going to become "forgotten men and women".  The people being cast aside or ignored by Trump are the majority of us, even if Trump has deluded himself into believing otherwise.  And we're not going away.  We're going to take America back, sooner or later.