In the first of a regular feature for The Tablet online, our regional correspondents probe behind the scenes to bring us an in-depth view of the big stories around the world. First up is our US correspondent Michael Sean Winters who takes a look at Donald Trump's US presidential inauguration...
In assuming the chief magistracy of the United States, new presidents typically strike notes of unity and hope, their inaugural addresses filled with uplifting themes and a sense of national purpose. President Donald Trump’s inaugural address was different, a mix of populist themes from his campaign with a dark, even dystopian vision of the country he now leads.
“Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealised potential,” Trump told the nation. “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.” Carnage was not a word ever used by a previous president.
One can imagine President Barack Obama in 2009, sketching a dark vision of the state of the country: The economy was shedding 800,000 jobs per month. But, Obama married his promises of change with a sense of hope. Trump takes office at a time when the private sector just completed its 75th consecutive month of job growth, the longest such streak since they began compiling records.
One can imagine President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, with the Civil War coming to its anguished conclusion, with more than 620,000 killed in the conflict, succumbing to pessimism about the possibility of binding the nation’s wounds, but he appealed to “the better angels of our nature” and urged his fellow countrymen to harbour “malice toward none” and “charity for all.” Trump, by contrast, lambasted “a small group in our nation's Capital [that] has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.”
Trump’s speech did not provide comfort to America’s allies either. “From this moment on, it's going to be, only, America First.” He seemed unaware that the America First movement of the 1930s was not only opposed to US involvement in the Second World War. The movement was heavily inflected by fascist sympathies. And, for every problem he identified, Trump had a simple solution: Himself.
Before the speech, a minister read from the Beatitudes. It was ironic. This day, at least, the meek did not inherit the earth.
Trump and intelligence
The commentary on Trump’s inaugural address was overwhelmingly negative and very short-lived. The next day, he travelled to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency ostensibly to show his support for the intelligence community he has been criticising in tweets and interviews. Trump blamed the media for the perceived hostility, even though it was his own Twitter account, and not CNN, that compared the investigation into Russian hacking during the election to the Nazis.
Trump, however, did not dwell on his show of support for the CIA. Instead, he complained that the media had underestimated the size of the crowds at his inauguration. “Looked like a million, a million and a half,” he said. Later that afternoon, the new press secretary, Sean Spicer, also lambasted the media and claimed that magnetometers and fencing were used for the first time, depressing the turnout, but there were no magnetometers and all recent inaugurals had fencing. Spicer claimed that the DC subway system registered 420,000 riders on inauguration day, while only 317,000 people rode the subway four years ago for Obama’s second inaugural. Both numbers were wrong: 571,000 people rode the subway on the day of Trump’s inauguration compared to 782,000 people four years prior. In 2009, 1.1 million people took the subway to Obama’s first inauguration.
The day after the inauguration, a women’s march protesting Trump took place and 1,001,616 people rode the subway, more than the day before. At the parties around town before and after the march, many women could not help telling jokes about the new president’s obsession with size.
Lunch at Ivanka's
President Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, are moving to D.C. The Justice Department issued a statement that Kushner was not prevented from taking a job as senior counsellor to his father-in-law by anti-nepotism statutes because those statutes do not apply to White House staff.
The Kushners will not be living in the White House. They purchased a $5.5 million mansion in the Kalorama neighbourhood. The home has six bedrooms and is within walking distance of a synagogue, which is important to the Orthodox Jewish couple who do not drive on the Sabbath. It is also located not far from the National Islamic Center, and one neighbour told me the Kushners should think twice before scheduling a luncheon on a Friday when Muslims coming to prayer make the parking a nightmare.
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