Dr Aurélie Basha i Novosejt, an expert in American History at Kent’s School of Humanities reflects on Donald Trump’s inaugural speech and how his address compared with previous US presidents. She said:
‘Donald Trump’s inaugural address was a rejection of historical norms in form as well as substance. His sharp rebuke of his predecessors – Republican and Democrat alike – as members of a ‘radical and corrupt establishment’ and depiction of outgoing President Joe Biden’s administration as a government ‘that cannot manage even a simple crisis’ revealed also a disregard for conventions about respecting the Office of the President.
‘The oath of office in the United States is chiefly a commitment to respect and protect key institutions, as enshrined in the Constitution. In recognition of that responsibility, incoming presidents have usually set personal animus aside. In their inaugural addresses, even the most divisive presidents have solemnly spoken about this ‘sacred commitment’ as Richard Nixon termed it and struck a note of unity. They have also kept their criticisms of their predecessors implicit, as John F. Kennedy did when he positioned himself as the leader of ‘a new generation of Americans’, in contrast to the elder Dwight Eisenhower who was 70 at the time.
‘Not so for Trump. He wasted no words waxing lyrical about the beauty of US institutions, and while he paid lip service to ‘unity’, he instead deployed a language of anger, disgust, and fear, the same emotions that fuel the algorithms of the social media companies whose CEOs stood behind him. He focused attention on himself and his power. His statement that he was “tested and challenged more than any president” was also, historically-speaking, debatable. Even assassination attempts on presidents are not that rare. Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts and what was perhaps more exceptional was that, both times, his assailants were women.
‘The most comparable inaugural address, however, is arguably from a president on the other side of the political spectrum, Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt delivered his address in the middle of a banking crisis, and more broadly, the Great Depression, with close to a quarter of the population unemployed. He, too, and more accurately, spoke of an ‘national emergency’, intimating that constitutional limits on the executive were not ‘wholly adequate’. In time, he radically transformed the power of the presidency, and to put Trump’s early actions in context, issued 3,721 executive orders. He ultimately faced congressional and Supreme Court actions that constrained his power, including the introduction of term limits (after he won a record four elections). Roosevelt, nevertheless, usually ranks top among 20th Century presidents, in large part, because of his ability to educate and calm the US public in the face also of the World War that followed, as well as his ability to build enduring coalitions around his ideas.’
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