Trump's Inaugural Address

Full transcript, video.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/20/donald-trumps-inauguration-speech-ful...

My hot take: I expected it to be scary. But I didn't expect it to quite so… dumb. Clunky, bland, monotonously phrased, dark but with unconvincing bits of treacle. As the fella' says, "Sad!"

Yours?

NPR has an annotated transcript:

http://www.npr.org/2017/01/20/510629447/watch-live-president-trumps-inauguration...

His call to patriotism, as the seeming greatest call, makes me sick. No concern at all for other peoples or the planet itself.

Schools, crime-fighting, jobs, military might. That is not my formula for greatness.

He was talking to his peeps, that's for sure.

A little insulting to his predecessors? For example, Obama saved many auto jobs and offered to health care to millions. Biden certainly doesn't leave Senate and VP position with fists full of money.

I was working all day, then traveled to meet my husband, met friends for dinner, and drank copious amounts of wine while dining with my conservative friends who brought up the current events of the day (to be fair, although conservative, they despise Trump almost as much as I do; but I had to listen to a whole of lot of Hillary-bashing. Also you must understand that I am the only liberal in the group, including my husband). So now, I'm home, drinking tea, sobering up, and still haven't been able to make myself watch the inauguration shenanigans. Other than reading a few FB posts about Melania's lovely blue suit which evidently channeled Jackie Kennedy, I've not watched anything about it. Maybe tomorrow. Then again, I may just isolate myself in a denial and Chardonnay for the next 4 years.

"It was a speech absent of nuance, befitting the first inauguration in more than half a century that saw no poetry read. The new President chose not to avail himself of the wisdom or soaring sentiments of other statesmen or artists, again breaking with tradition."

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/washington/how-tiny-details-tell-the-bigger-stor...

ETA: maybe a limerick from the canon of Nantucket?

Washington Post: "A most dreadful inaugural address"
George F. Will
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/01/20/a-most-dreadful...

"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.

Photos seem to show more people at Women's March than at Inauguration.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/21/politics/womens-march-donald-trump-inauguration-si...

"What’s remarkable is that the president and his administration chose to lie, repeatedly, on their first full day on the job, about a relatively trivial ― and easily checkable ― matter."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-lies-crowd-size_us_5884104ae4b0e3a7356...

Trump and Sean Spicer spend yesterday telling bald-faced lies to the press and seemed especially upset about the demonstrably low attendance at the inauguration:

With False Claims, Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift https://nyti.ms/2kd6EBo

Yesterday's women's march is the largest one-day protest in US history: http://www.politicususa.com/2017/01/21/womens-march-biggest-protest-history-esti...

Crowd Scientists Say Women’s March in Washington Had 3 Times More People Than Trump’s Inauguration https://nyti.ms/2jMhDEW

Scenes of the Protests on Every Continent https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/21/world/womens-march-pictures.html

A little chilling, U.S. border agents turning away Canadians hoping to join Women’s March: an exercise of professional discretion by veteran/police-types who tend to support Trump? What's next--are people driving with pink hats more likely to be pulled over by police?
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/21/u-s-border-agents-turned-away-canadians-hop...

(Granted, it is a little weird, the enthusiasm of non-Americans worldwide for the women's march. I guess it reflects the importance of US president in setting worldwide norms?)

>9 sturlington: Maybe nationwide, but it is hard to tell, honestly. I think the Million Man March to DC was bigger if you are looking at DC. I don't remember if there was any attempt to create "brother marches" in other places. Without the help of ubiquitous social media, there was probably fewer spontaneous rallies in other places.

>11 southernbooklady: I think they mean nationwide; estimates are that over 3 million people participated. Social media played a big role, but everywhere turnout far exceeded organizers' estimates. A message was clearly and loudly sent.

>10 margd: I definitely don't think it's because of the President's importance in setting worldwide norms. Certainly, in Europe, where we have a better history of female leadership, we don't look to the U.S. to set norms. If anything, I think it's more to do with marching in solidarity with women in a potentially more backward situation than we are. Europe has also already had its own fights over the last few months about blatant attacks on women's rights by at least one far-right, nationalistic, church-driven administration (PiS in Poland) so the trajectory is one of increasingly vocal protest on these kind of issues. I do think there's more appetite for protest in the current climate for many reasons - in the UK alone, we're in a place where many feel voiceless with the current Brexit shenanigans. It drives them more to express voice where they can. Also, certainly for those in Europe the two World Wars seem like much less distant history now Brexit looks unstoppable and the parallels between this rise in fascist, racist and nationalistic fervour and the pre-war warning signs are not lost on people. At least in the UK, Trump is thought of in many camps as corrupt and a bully - the atrocious way he engineered the Scottish golf club and his treatment of local objectors saw to that. Who likes to see a bully prosper?

Plus, we'd all just like to see someone intelligent and sane in charge of the U.S., whatever the political flavour.

So, I think maybe it's a perfect storm of reasons that worldwide people are marching. I'm guessing each country could come up with a different set of contributing factors.

>12 sturlington: It was -- is -- wonderful. As for messages sent, Trump will remain deaf as a post to what he doesn't want to hear, but there is a chance that members of Congress will wake up. Probably the best thing that could happen now is that Democrats start taking the Governors races and state legislatures.

>14 southernbooklady: There is no point trying to reach Trump on anything. He is, I am now convinced, mentally incompetent. But other elected representatives, the media, public opinion are also powerful and can be be appealed to.

Going by the examples here and elsewhere, the big point with Trump's supporters is the pillage, rampage, and sheer hurting of people that will be or is already under way. Rational verbal opposition means to them about as much as to a Vandal in the midst of cracking skulls.

They are gloating about and preparing to rape, literally and figuratively, your land and your people, and presumably anyone else as far as possible.

>15 sturlington: He is, I am now convinced, mentally incompetent.

Only now? :)

>14 southernbooklady:

... "Trump will remain deaf as a post to what he doesn't want to hear, but there is a chance that members of Congress will wake up."...

It might help to recall from _very_ recent history: the last president to do that (i.e. "remain deaf as a post to what he doesn't want to hear") was a man named Barack Obama. He did a superb job of insulting, mocking and essentially writing off a huge part of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, keeping the party the hijacked continuing haven for the Republican/Neo-con wing of the party that it was when he came to office. But you may not have noticed this as much since, for you, I gather, Obama so often mouthed appealing words and offered symbolic, largely empty gestures in a certain number of policy areas (abortion rights, "race issues"; "gender issues" etc.) to mollify and comfort those who respond well to that kind of fobbing off.

I see no greater chance of Congress "waking up."

Crowd Scientists Say Women’s March
in Washington Had 3 Times as
Many People as Trump’s Inauguration

...Marcel Altenburg and Keith Still, crowd scientists at Manchester Metropolitan University in Britain, analyzed photographs and video taken of the National Mall and vicinity and estimated that there were about 160,000 people in those areas in the hour leading up to Mr. Trump’s speech Friday.

They estimated that at least 470,000 people were at the women’s march in Washington in the areas on and near the mall at about 2 p.m. Saturday.

The two images (at website) show the crowds when they were at their peak density at the two events...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/22/us/politics/womens-march-trump-cr...

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, said the White House press secretary gave "alternative facts" when he inaccurately described the inauguration crowd as "the largest ever" during his first appearance before the press this weekend.

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/wh-spokesman-gave-alternative-facts-inaugu...

He really is a pig.

In His Inaugural Address, Donald Trump Embraced Anti-Semites’ Slogan
The Anti-Defamation League asked him to stop using it. He didn’t care.

>17 southernbooklady: I know you're just making a joke, but I'm honestly trying not to be flippant about this. Mental illness is a disease, and people who have it should not be stigmatized. But I think it is a mistake to look at what Trump says and does as if he is behaving rationally.

>21 sturlington:

He's intellectually and morally incompetent, not mentally.

>21 sturlington: He's completely narcissistic. I don't know where that falls in the range of "mental illness" but he doesn't get any pass from me for his inability to empathize with anyone who isn't telling him how great he is.

>23 southernbooklady: I am not giving him a pass, far from it. But people insist on treating him like he's a rational human being making strategic decisions, and he's just not that.

Narcissistic personality disorder is an incurable mental illness. It is important to recognize what he is and behave accordingly, not to try to normalize or rationalize his behavior. This is for our own survival and has nothing to do with empathy for Trump (although I do feel empathy for people who struggle with mental illness generally).

I found this article helpful: https://qz.com/852187/coping-with-chaos-in-the-white-house/

"But people insist on treating him like he's a rational human being making strategic decisions, and he's just not that."

Either this "irrational" man or others he chose or who were chosen with his knowledge and approval by others he appointed, manifestly read better, more lucidly, more astutely, both his opponents' campaigns--ALL of them, 15 or 16 other Republican primary opponents as well as his main Democratic party oppenent, HRC--and the mood of the nation's electorate, correctly judging all of them in their strengths and weaknesses--or he won by some sheer miraculous dumb luck which defies all reason and facts. Unfortunately, a sane and fair review of the actual facts of the battle does not favor the victory by a miracle theory.

In Trump's campaign, many thngs were tried, tested and very quickly abandoned as soon as real-world experience showed their faults and limitation and these were replaced by the other, evidence-based, alternatives which proved out by the same testing.

So, according to your theory, the most knowledgable, experienced, grounded and emotionally and intellectually competent candidate, HRC, was defeated by a egomaniac so divorced from reality that his ability to discern it and distinguish it from his pathological delusions.

Yes, I see a problem somewhere. Trump is, like most of us, a mixture of rational thought and action and other influencing forces.

Morally and intellectually, he compares very well to HRC and is even in some respects easily superior to her. The campaign's tests of strength showed this to people who aren't still living in a pathological state of denial. You're far from the worst of those.