President Donald Trump is now officially the 47th president of the United States.
Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 was marred by violence from the left; it was also surreal.
The media were utterly shocked by Trump’s victory — Trump himself seemed shocked, too — and that disbelief translated into four years of extraordinary efforts to deny that Trump had indeed won, ranging from attacks on social media companies to blaming Russian collusion.
Not so this time.
I was in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration. The streets were calm — and, despite the freezing temperatures, filled with Trump supporters. There was no violence. In fact, a sense of quiescence pervaded the town, a recognition that not only had Trump won, but that he had won convincingly.
This makes perfect sense.
As the first president to serve non-consecutive terms since Grover Cleveland, Trump doesn’t represent something new, something that the American public must digest. He represents something tried and true. Usually, American politics tends to follow a near-Hegelian map: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Jimmy Carter (far left) is followed by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush (conservative), and the American public finally settle on Bill Clinton (the fabled “third way”). The Harding/Coolidge era (conservative) is followed by the FDR era (far left), and the American public finally settle on Dwight D. Eisenhower (centrist).
Not this time.
This time, the American people presented a thesis: Trump.
Then they were presented a man who acted as Trump’s antithesis on virtually every policy, from immigration to taxes to foreign policy to social radicalism: Joe Biden.
And then they selected Trump again.
This means that Trump doesn’t need to synthesize lessons from Biden. Biden’s agenda has been roundly rejected — for the man they originally rejected in favor of Biden. The American public has bought what Trump is selling.
And that means that Trump does indeed have a unique mandate.
That mandate isn’t endless. The American public want, as Trump suggested in his inaugural address, “common sense.” They want the border closed and the economy booming; they want innovation, and they want social stability. They don’t want distractions and infighting and dramatics and hullabaloo.
Trump seems poised to give it to them.
It was difficult not to watch Trump’s second inaugural address and get the sense that he understands the assignment. Spanning just under 3,000 words, Trump kept to his message. He spoke without anger or bluster. He was flanked by leaders in innovation.
When he promised a new golden age, that didn’t feel particularly audacious.
It felt right.
After a decade of Donald Trump, Americans know what he means.
And Trump knows what Americans meant when they elected him. They meant that they want success. They want winning. They want the American dream — the chance to rise and fall on their own merits. They want to feel proud of their country again.
We should all pray that Trump is successful in that mission.
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