January 20-22, 2017: President Trump is Inaugurated and Focus Turns to Crowd Size

 

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“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” 

Mark Twain

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January 20, 2017: Donald J. Trump is sworn in as 45^th President of the United States. He doesn’t grab any woman on the podium by the pussy. So, you could argue he’s off to a good start. 

 

“American carnage” optimism from a new president. 

In his Inaugural Address he offers “cheery” assessment. We have “an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge, and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.” 

We live in a time of “American carnage,” Trump says. 

No way of knowing if he’s thinking about police shootings of unarmed black citizens. Not likely. 

Nor does he offer tips on how to deal with mass shootings. This has much to do with the fact the N.R.A. loves him and his biggest fans still believe Sandy Hook was staged by President Obama. 

He does highlight “the sad depletion of our military.” This seems odd since U.S. military spending is already greater than the military spending of the next seven top countries combined. 

No matter. He’s going to see that we spend more. (See: 8/14/19 for news on the deficit for FY 2019.)

Kellyanne Conway at the Inauguration.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: We won’t learn this until July 2021, but the out-going president leaves behind a thoughtful letter for the new man about to take a seat in the Oval Office. 

Looking back four and a half years later, this blogger realizes that an almost prophetic comment from President Obama comes in this paragraph: 

Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties – that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.

 

Trump never did learn or care to learn to follow that advice.

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1/21/17: On his first full day in office Trump claims journalists are “among the most dishonest people on earth [emphasis added].” Those who love the free press have immediate cause for worry. The president is outraged because he says the crowd at his Inauguration was the biggest ever.

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1/22/17: The argument over crowd size takes a bizarre turn when Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, says his crowd was way bigger. She knows because she has “alternative facts” to support her position.