An Analysis of Trump’s Inaugural Speech
By Martin Strangman
Last Saturday morning (AEDT) Donald Trump officially became the 45th President of the United States. He’s inaugural speech was roughly fifteen minutes long and in that time Trump outlined his vision for America.
An analysis of the speech shows that Donald Trump’s oratory skills are nowhere near as good Obama’s. And the crowd was in fact smaller despite the “alternative facts” espoused by Sean Spicer the new White House Press Secretary.
Trump started his inaugural speech surprisingly gracefully by thanking all the Presidents in attendance before him. He then launched into an attack on the establishment and promised a shakeup in Washington returning power to the people.
Throughout his speech Trump goes on to criticise free trade and open market economics. The author of this article feels it is necessary to point out that “I am a big supporter of free trade and open market economics”. I argue that if Trump is genuinely planning to place tariff barriers on China and attempt to start an arms race with them it will affect the global economy greatly.
One of the most crowd pleasing moments during Trump’s speech was when he stated that from now on in every trade deal, conflict and foreign policy matter etc… it would be America first. The crowd at this point was jubilant.
Lastly and most terrifyingly at the end of his speech Trump argued there is nothing better than to be patriotic for one’s country. A terrifying spectacle that is made worse because one of Trump’s first orders of business is to enact a national day of patriotic devotion – a terrifying premise reminiscent of Orwell.
Since the inauguration, it is the author’s opinion that Trump has proven himself to be the most dangerous US president in history.
In Sean Spicer’s (The new White House Press Secretary) conference on the 21st of January he argued Trumps inauguration crowds were far bigger than Obama’s and after analysis from many outlets it has been proven that Spicer was stating a known falsehood. While this is really only a minor falsehood it is worrying that on day 1 the Press Secretary is willing to be so brazen about stating known lies.
What a difference of crowds for Obama v Trump #InaugurationDay #InaugurationDay2017 pic.twitter.com/3pUBOja21G
— jane alder (@alder204) January 20, 2017
The night of the inauguration saw one of the biggest worldwide peaceful demonstrations of women’s rights directed at the incoming Trump administration. The biggest demonstration occurred in Washington DC and was estimated to have a crowd of roughly half a million people, whilst the inauguration is estimated by the New York Times to have a crowd of roughly 200,000 people. The Women’s March is reported to have been one of the largest world-wide demonstrations of all time.
The Trump administration has its work cut out for it, and if it continues to follow the path of its first few days in office there will be tumultuous times and dark days ahead. This author proudly anticipates the day that Donald Trump is impeached because “I believe that he is one of the most dangerous men ever to walk the Earth and should not be the President of the United States as he poses a danger to us all”.