In Donald Trump’s new conceit, America was a hellhole in 2016, he made it great, then former President Joe Biden broke everything, but thanks to Trump’s 2024 election win, everything will be great again. Or, as he said in his inaugural address on Monday, “The golden age of America begins right now.”
You know he is full of shit. I know he’s full of shit. We’d like to think everyone around him knows so as well, but does he? It’s the age-old question: Is Trump evil or merely stupid?
If his inaugural speech says anything, it’s that he is delusional in what he thinks he can accomplish.
After some throat clearing, Trump’s speech begins:
From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer.
One of Trump’s conceits is that other countries no longer respect the United States but that they did respect us when he was president—a time when the world literally laughed at him.
Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.
Right off the bat, we find out that Trump has no intentions of uniting the country. Rather, he’ll be airing his usual grievances—Trump’s 24/7/365 celebration of Festivus.
Trump wants to end the weaponization of the Justice Department? So patently absurd, especially as Trump frequently talks about all his enemies he wants to prosecute. Just this past Saturday, he shared a post on his Truth Social platform that called for Democratic politicians to be prosecuted.
It’s going to be an exhausting four years.
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, sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.
Sunlight is pouring over the world, y’all.
As we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and, seemingly, in complete disrepair.
Imagine the gall of saying that when the front row of your inauguration audience—in front of your Cabinet picks—is the modern American oligarchy:
Net worth of those pictured as of Tuesday morning:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk: $425 billion
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: $241 billion
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg: $212 billion
Google CEO Sundar Pichai: $1.3 billion
Add in Bernard Arnault, who also attended and whose familial net worth is $181 billion, and you get a combined net worth of nearly $1.1 trillion. TRILLION. Four of the five richest men in the world were there, and it’s possible all five were if Trump pal Larry Ellison was also somewhere in the crowd.
Trump will stand there and talk about “extracted … wealth from our citizens” when he seems to have just pulled a pump-and-dump cryptocurrency scheme on his own followers?
It’s telling that when talking about national disasters, his real empathy has always been for the wealthy:
Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergency, as recently shown by the wonderful people of North Carolina, been treated so badly, and other states who are still suffering from a hurricane that took place many months ago.
Or more recently Los Angeles, where we are watching fires still tragically burn from weeks ago without even a token of defense. They’re raging through the houses and communities, even affecting some of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in our country, some of whom are sitting here right now.
Maybe those powerful and wealthy individuals can pay their fair share of taxes to support those services? Not to mention the brutal insult to the firefighters bravely fighting those fires in Los Angeles.
Also, Trump cut the FEMA budget last time he was president. You better believe it’ll get hacked this time around as well.
It is my hope that our recent presidential election will be remembered as the greatest and most consequential election in the history of our country. As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda …
It won’t be remembered as such. Why would it be? Sheesh.
And no, the nation isn’t unifying. It’s just as divided as always. In any case, Trump then starts with his promises, leading with sending troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants. As I’ve written before, good luck with that. Even his own border czar, Tom Homan, is trying to temper expectations.
We will drill, baby, drill. … We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again—right to the top—and export American energy all over the world.
The U.S. is already a top energy exporter in the world. Trump will soon take credit for something Biden has largely done. Given the climate crisis, though, this may not actually be a good thing.
With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal, and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers.
Congrats, Elon Musk, who owns the electric car company Tesla.
Also, the Green New Deal isn’t law. Is Trump talking about green energy projects under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act? In one of those inexplicable things Democrats keep doing to themselves, the bulk of investment from that law went to red congressional districts. And those Republicans don’t want to give up that sweet federal cash.
Me, I’m actually rooting for Trump to kill those projects. If Republican voters want federal investment in their communities, they can vote Democratic next time. And when Democrats have power, they need to spend that money on their constituents. Build those factories in blue cities and states. Give them a reason to keep voting Democratic. Because watching their tax dollars go to ingrate conservatives isn’t doing the party any good.
Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. For this purpose, we are establishing the External Revenue Service to collect all tariffs, duties, and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury coming from foreign sources.
Every business leader, including those sitting in Trump’s inauguration audience, knows that this will be a tax on American consumers. Along with any deportations the administration manages, this will prove to be deeply inflationary. So all those people complaining about the price of eggs? Buckle down—it’s about to get much worse.
Also, there’s already an “External Revenue Service.” It’s the customs part of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.
After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.
Put a pin on this one. It won’t age well.
This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.
Cruelty will certainly be the official policy of the United States.
This week, I will reinstate any service members who were unjustly expelled from our military for objecting to the Covid vaccine mandate, with full back pay. And I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty.
I’m gonna have to research what “radical political theories” he’s talking about. Is it women in combat? I bet it’s women in combat roles.
Our armed forces are facing a recruiting crisis. Trump wants to make it worse.
My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be, a peacemaker, and a unifier.
I’m laughing too!
America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on Earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs.
Trump’s a loon.
He also claims he’ll take back the Panama Canal. But remember, he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker and unifier, as he threatens Panama (and Greenland and Denmark, and Canada, among other allies).
Above all, my message to Americans today is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor, and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization. So, as we liberate our nation, we will lead it to new heights of victory and success. We will not be deterred. Together, we will end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy, and disease-free.
He wants to keep kids disease-free … and yet he wants a vaccine denier to lead the Department of Health and Human Services … all while being the dude who loves McDonald’s.
The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.
He wants his legacy to be peace, and nothing says “peace” more than actual, literal imperialism.
In recent years, our nation has suffered greatly, but we are going to bring it back and make it great again, greater than ever before. We will be a nation like no other, full of compassion, courage, and exceptionalism. Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable.
So … is his vision of “unity” and “peace” actually more like “world conquest”? Sure seems that way. Because nothing says “angry, violent, and totally unpredictable” like Trump himself and his MAGA movement.
Indeed, if there’s anything we are sure to see over the next four years is more anger, violence, and unpredictability, courtesy of Trump. That is already his legacy, and everything he is pushing for—deportations, inflationary tariffs, anti-trans hate, and imperialism—will only further cement that legacy.
Thank you to the Daily Kos community who continues to fight so hard with Daily Kos. Your reader support means everything. We will continue to have you covered and keep you informed, so please donate just $3 to help support the work we do.
This post was originally published on here
