Donald J. Trump declared his inauguration as the nation’s 47th president as a moment of American renewal, promising to usher in a “thrilling new era of national success” after depicting the last four years as “a horrible betrayal.”

“The golden age of America begins right now. From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world,” Trump said at the outset of an inaugural address delivered to a scaled-down, in-person crowd inside the Capitol Rotunda where the ceremony was relocated to due to the frigid temperatures.

Trump declared that “sunlight is pouring all over the entire world” and promised that global challenges “will be annihilated by this great momentum the world is witnessing in the United States of America.” But those notes of hopefulness were countered by language that was familiarly blunt and acerbic, promising to undo his predecessor’s accomplishments.

Wearing a more understated purple tie instead of the emphatic red one that’s become his sartorial signature, Trump in his address was characteristically dark, describing a “crisis of trust” in government and calling his election victory a “mandate to completely reverse a horrible betrayal.”

“From this moment on, America’s decline is over,” he said, promising to “very simply put America first,” relishing his having swept all seven swing states over Vice President Kamala Harris. He promised to end inflation, to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas, end subsidies for electric vehicles and eliminate genders besides male and female. He vowed to end diseases, wars and Panama’s control of the Panama Canal.

Trump’s speech capped an unprecedented political comeback, eight years after his first inaugural address painted a dystopian vision of “American carnage” and four years after his supporters stormed the Capitol in an effort to overturn his defeat. Just six months after his conviction in a hush money case, the former reality TV star — now the first felon to serve as president — made explicit reference to his own personal travails.

Trump decried “the vicious, violent unfair weaponization of our justice department and our government will end,” claiming that he’s “been challenged more than any president in our 250 year history.”

He lumped together the prosecutors who went after him in recent years and the assassin who narrowly took his life during a rally last July, expressing his own survival in messianic terms.

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” he said.

Politico

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