Analysis: 'American carnage' gets a fresh coat of paint

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s uniquely American coronation is complete.

There has been no resistance movement this time. He retook the presidential reins Monday armed with a Supreme Court immunity ruling, no remaining legal troubles and the backing of extremely influential corporate executives.

“I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country,” Trump said during his inaugural address after taking the presidential oath for a second time, calling for a “revolution of common sense” and the start of a “Golden Age.”

Trump, who has admitted to being a novice the first time he took office, spent more time in Monday’s address laying out his second-term agenda. Several Republican sources and lawmakers in recent weeks have said that Trump learned a lot about how the federal government works from his earlier stint in office and wants to hit the ground running.

But the core of the address was the same bleak assessment of the state of the country he offered eight years ago — with plenty of thinly veiled blame on an outgoing Democratic president and congressional Democrats.

“We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country anywhere in the world,” he said. “We have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves, in many cases, to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them. All of this will change starting today.”

He warned that “foreign gangs and criminal networks” had, under Biden, brought “devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” and vowed almost immediate executive actions to end it.

Trump made those remarks while standing in the same Capitol Rotunda where, just four years earlier, a mob of his “Make America Great Again” loyalists had attempted a different kind of revolution, choking on tear gas and clashing with police as they sought to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. On Monday, Trump raised his right hand and swore to defend the very Constitution that the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot said he tried to subvert.

Trump spent eight weeks last spring in a Manhattan court room facing charges related to a payment made to an adult film star and producer. He is set to spend the next 208 weeks in the Oval Office.

Trump’s second inaugural address was not quite his January 2017 “American carnage” speech, but it contained some of the same themes — with a slightly more upbeat tone.

Eight years ago, Trump spoke of “forgotten men and women” and declared that “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” after contending that “crime and gangs and drugs” had “stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”

One difference from the weeks before and after the “American carnage” address has been Democrats’ more measured response to his words and deeds since his November win.

“There is a peaceful transition of power. I’m showing up, and other Democrats are showing up, not without saying the fact that four years ago, he didn’t show up,” Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern said Monday, alluding to Trump skipping Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. “And many Republicans didn’t show up. We’re not them. We’re not them. And I think that’s an important message.

“Trump is the ‘great distractor,’ right? And the bottom line is that the fights ahead of us are very, very serious, and we need to be focused, and we need to be disciplined,” McGovern added. “And I think there’s a lot of outrage, and you will see that expressed in the weeks to come.”

‘Firing on all cylinders’

Another change from January 2017: Many Democrats have stressed the need to look for areas to partner with the new president.

“Look, if he wants a partner to bring down costs and crime, he’ll find my hand. If he wants an opponent on his divisive rhetoric and fear-mongering, he’ll find my eyes, ears and voice,” California Rep. Eric Swalwell said. “And today, it sounded like the old Trump — someone missing an opportunity to unite the nation.”

Republicans lauded Monday’s address, with New York Rep. Mike Lawler predicting a busy period ahead on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue.

“In some respects, this is obviously a very unique situation, given that he’s already served once before,” Lawler said. “And, so, I think he has every intention of hitting the ground running in a way that when you’re first elected, you may not.”

After Trump was sworn in again, the dark green helicopter typically known as Marine One lifted off from the Capitol’s East Front and banked left. Inside was his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, whose presidency featured a number of legislative victories but fell short of its ultimate goal: ridding the country and its politics of Donald John Trump and what Biden contended was a threat to American democracy

“People are totally missing that this is the greatest political comeback of all time,” Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist, said in a telephone interview. “President Trump has his highest approval rating of all time. His transition is seen as having been positive. His nominees, with maybe one or two exceptions, are right on track.”

“The bottom line is,” O’Connell said, “Trump’s firing on all cylinders.”

To that end, a new CBS News/YouGov poll found 60 percent of Americans saying they were optimistic about the next four years with Trump as president. That compares favorably with other recent presidents at the start of their terms: Biden at 58%, Barack Obama at 79% and George W. Bush at 64%. (The Jan. 15-17 poll had a margin of error of 2.5%.)

Still, when the inaugural ceremony was moved inside the Capitol Rotunda for the official reason of frigid temperatures, it placed the resurgent Trump in what was an epicenter of the Jan. 6 riot. And though security across the Capitol complex was tight, if one observed only the official ceremony, it was as if the insurrection of four years ago had never happened — and Trump had no role in it.

The House Jan. 6 committee concluded that Trump, on Jan. 6, 2021, had assisted or aided “those at the Capitol who engaged in a violent attack on the United States,” citing “significant evidence that President Trump intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power.”

Trump and his congressional GOP allies, however, were largely focused on other things Monday as he formally completed his return to power. Trump, who survived two assassination attempts last year, spent much of his third presidential campaign blasting Biden’s policies and describing the United States as something of a cultural and economic hellscape. He often called Biden, his team and congressional Democrats the “stupid people” who were running the federal government.

‘Four years of weakness’

During a Sunday “victory rally” at Washington’s Capital One Arena, Stephen Miller, the incoming White House homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff overseeing policy, railed against Democrats. At one point, he accused them of overseeing the “decaying” of the country.

“Four years of weakness, four years of humiliation and embarrassment, four years of persecution, four years of inflation, poverty, incompetence, four years of betrayal. Four years of wide open, undefended, unprotected, open borders,” Miller said as the crowd cheered. “But tomorrow, at 12 p.m., that’s all going to end.”

Rarely has a political party seemed so excited to inherit what it claims are a raft of major problems — Trump on Sunday promised to “act with historic speed and strength and fix every single crisis facing our country.”

On Sunday evening, Trump, in his signature style, predicted he would get it all done. Notably, he mentioned Republicans’ razor-thin House majority — but not as anything his party needed to worry about.

“We vote unified so it doesn’t really make any difference,” Trump said, seemingly ignoring the GOP’s intraparty clashes of recent years that have led to a number of bills being scrapped or altered significantly.

Trump and his closest aides have set a remarkably high bar for his second term. Political observers say he has less than two years to accomplish most of his campaign promises, with congressional midterm elections — that traditionally have favored the party out of power — due in November 2026.

Trump succeeds a president who tripped over the expectations bar more often than he cleared it.

Biden and former first lady Jill Biden had some parting words Monday afternoon for staff and friends at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington. Then, the massive government airliner typically known as Air Force One ferried them to California.

The official presidential guidance for the day released by the now-dissolved Biden White House listed his arrival in the Golden State as “closed press” as the self-declared protector of democracy enters private life with his legacy in question and his party diminished.

“I’m clearly disappointed with the results of the election, and I have no idea what’s going to happen in the next two to four years,” McGovern said. “But I’m deeply worried.”

As the winter sun beamed in on a cold day, the executive helicopter carrying the now-former president and first lady away from Washington could be seen through the glass ceiling in Emancipation Hall. Many of the assembled Trump supporters applauded.

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(Justin Papp contributed to this report.)

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