Trump and the New Gilded Age

Four years of a national nightmare began yesterday as Donald Trump - one blogger friend now simply refers to him as the "felon" - was sworn in and regained the White House.   Having surrounded himself with billionaires and promised massive tax cuts for the very wealthy (to be funded by cuts to programs and benefits for working and middle class Americans), in his first hours in office, rescinded Biden's lowering of drug prices paid by seniors, declared war on transgender Americans - I suspect gays will be next to satisfy his white Christian nationalist base - pardoned literal cop killers among those convicted on crimes on January 6, 2021, withdrew America from the Paris climate accord, withdrew America from the World Health Organization, again threatened Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs, and threatened to retake the Panama Canal.  Other than satiating MAGA xenophobia and the Christofascists homophobia for the moment, Trump - the felon - offered little that would bring down grocery prices or end inflation.  I have long said that Republicans want a new Gilded Age beneficial to today's robber baron equivalents and the wealthy.  Trump's inaugural speech signaled full speed ahead with that agenda.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at yesterday's nightmarish event:

Eight years ago, with his “American carnage” speech, Donald Trump delivered what was likely the darkest inaugural address in U.S. history. During his second inaugural, he tried for a slightly more uplifting message. . . . . “The golden age of America,” he declared, “begins right now.”

Perhaps it would be more aptly called a Gilded Age. Trump was joined in the Capitol Rotunda by many of the nation’s richest and most powerful men, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Mark Zuckerberg. The attendance of the business titans was rendered conspicuous by the small space. . . . . Their presence also added a strange dimension to Trump’s complaint that “for many years, the radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens.”

This was the first time since Grover Cleveland’s second inauguration, in 1893—during America’s first Gilded Age—that a president was sworn in for a nonconsecutive second term. And many of the policies and ideas in the speech evoked the late 1800s more than any recent presidency.

The speech was saturated with 19th-century imperialism. Trump announced that he would order the name of America’s highest peak to be changed from Denali back to its old name, Mount McKinley, and he extolled the 25th president’s use of tariffs. . . . . Trump also said he would rename the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America,” and he promised to “pursue our Manifest Destiny into the stars,” invoking the controversial slogan of expansionism. Picking up an idea he had voiced in recent weeks, he also vowed to seize the Panama Canal from Panama.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, the chair of the Inaugural Ceremony Committee, heralded America’s “peaceful transfer of power” in the same building where it was disrupted on January 6, 2021. A few minutes later, Trump stood face-to-face with Chief Justice John Roberts, who granted him broad immunity in a ruling last summer, and took the same oath of office that he flagrantly broke at the end of his first term. His mood was not only celebratory, but messianic.

Historically, presidents have used their inaugural addresses to pivot from the blue-sky promises of the campaign trail to the more sober language of governing. Rather than dwell on campaign vows they may struggle to keep, they reach for gauzy and unifying language. This, however, is not Trump’s forte.

Nor did Trump make much effort to reach out to or reconcile with the voters who don’t support him, although he promised that “national unity is returning to America.” He boasted about his (very narrow) margin in the popular vote and victories in seven swing states. “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed their freedom,” he said.

Instead, Trump delivered something akin to his stump speech: a meandering laundry list of policy promises of varying degrees of plausibility. He called for a huge expansion of oil and gas extraction. “We will drill, baby, drill,” he said. He promised to impose major tariffs. He said he would deploy U.S. troops to the Mexican border, expand immigration enforcement inside the country, and declare drug cartels foreign terrorist organizations. He also signaled an executive order that will continue the attacks on people who don’t conform to traditional gender norms.

[M]uch of the speech was devoted to things that are almost certainly never going to happen. He vowed to beat inflation but didn’t say how. He said he’d establish an External Revenue Service to handle the money he claimed tariffs would bring in, but this would require an act of Congress, as would the Department of Government Efficiency he claims he’ll create. . . . This was all a warm-up for Trump’s most audacious promise. “Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent, and totally unpredictable,” he said.

But the world already knows what four years of a Trump presidency looks like. Serenity, peace, and predictability were not the hallmarks of his first term, and they are unlikely to describe the second any better.