
US Elections #6: Episode II: The Apprentice Strikes Back »
In this series of articles about the US elections, we cover the American general elections which have taken place on November 5 by looking into both candidates, their campaigns, platforms, and policy proposals. The results are subsequently being analyzed, as well as their impacts. Finally, conferences, speeches and other important events are being covered.
In this op-ed, the author critically analyzes Donald Trump’s inauguration, the symbolics and references behind the ceremony, as well as its near future repercussions. The last episode of this series leaves us contemplating about America’s future, with repercussions far beyond its borders.
Author: Nikola Stanicic
“My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be—a peacemaker and a unifier. I’m pleased to say that, as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families.”
As Donald Trump, the now 47th President of the United States, was being inaugurated, the warmer and strikingly acoustic setting of the Capitol Hill rotunda—where the ceremony took place—echoed loudly with symbolism reminiscent of a similarly dramatic scene from a not-so-distant past. In 1981, as the modern-day GOP’s Sitting Bull, Ronald Reagan, was being sworn into office, Iran finally released the American hostages—a crisis that sealed Jimmy Carter’s electoral defeat and made him a serious contender alongside Joe Biden for the title of most successful one-term U.S. president.
Biden, who gave his farewell address last Wednesday, warned the country of a “…dangerous concentration of power at the hands of a few ultra-wealthy people.” Now, those same usual suspects—Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and, naturally, none other than Elon Musk—were standing right across from the now-former President, behind Trump’s own children.
If dissonance isn’t the right term, then maybe grotesque is. The intimately garnished indoor venue helped highlight a certain hierarchy, usually muffled by the bullish roar of Trump’s MAGA apostles. Among other things, it became clear who eats at the royal table and who’s left with dog scraps. The single image of America’s wealthiest men—a combined net worth of $900 billion—standing in front of the future Cabinet was a revealing distribution of power in Trump’s new Washington. America’s new “tech oligarchy”, as Biden prophesied in his address, relegated more traditional powers such as governors and mayors to the lower league of high political status, both figuratively and literally. The latter were returned to the backup “overflow room,” with few leftovers to eat.
Trump’s comeback is somewhat of a crime scene born out of his own refusal to concede defeat. Aside from wanting to rename an Alaskan mountain after William McKinley—a fellow tariff-loving president—or end the “electric vehicle mandate” that never existed, Trump’s inaugural address wasn’t so phenomenally different from the one he gave eight years ago. It is, as it was then, all about himself.
The same man who first gained fame in the 1980s by putting his name on lavish New York real estate now continuously returned to the theme of an American golden age starting on day one of his coming to office. Trump, however, is no fool, as he knew how to break the fourth wall of the otherwise relatively established inaugural address format. “Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history,” the Creator himself had called this humbled sinner back to power and unleashed him on those who had attempted to assassinate him or, even worse, make him the first convicted felon ever to be elected president. “I was saved by God…,” he concluded, “…to make America great again.” If you do believe in God, then that claim might, at least on the surface, appear credible. It takes no fanatical believer, however, to see through the divine comedy and unpredictability of the next four years.
Joe Biden’s name was never mentioned, but Trump couldn’t have been any more straightforward in calling January 20th “Liberation Day” from the former president who, as it happens, set the stage for Trump’s return after promising normalcy and decorum to the office. With the tone of an elementary school kid forced onto a stage to recite, the president-elect spoke of “horrible betrayal” and “America’s decline,” as laments purposefully written to illustrate the previous administration’s failings. Little was spared, from immigration policy to an educational system described as one that “teaches us to hate our country,” and, of course, the weaponization of a justice system that unfairly went after Trump and his supporters, seemingly without ever harming his ego. What seemed like a marriage between a State of the Union to-do list and a campaign rally soon became a self-promotional ode to Trump’s self-aggrandizement. Everything he does is the strongest, the greatest, the most beautiful. The finest first day, the most amazing first week, the most wonderful 100 days in office. Maybe whoever wrote his speech found inspiration in repeating lies so hyperbolic that we all know their opposite meaning to be unconditionally true: “That’s what I wanna be, a peacemaker and a unifier.”
In past inaugural occasions, presidents have used the opportunity to summon nonpartisan American pride and emphasize our moral values. Trump served us the newly named Gulf of America, “restoring biological truth to the federal government,” and a potential military invasion of Panama. Along similar lines, what should we even think of someone who toys around with the idea of territorial expansion and promises a human mission to Mars, all the while never mentioning the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia that he had promised to end during his first 24 hours in power? Soon after the new patron saint of the American civic religion closed with his last words, Lorenzo Sewell, a pastor from Detroit, came up to the podium and took his own few moments of God-given media thunder. Purposefully imitating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who happened to be honored on the same day as the inauguration, the pastor cried, “Free at last, free at last.” Trump himself mockingly smirked at the words pronounced in the famous “I Have a Dream” speech a little more than sixty years ago. Men this hypocritical recognize one another instantly, I guess. Both are symptoms of an attitude so self-absorbed that Trump himself probably didn’t recognize the place where, four years ago, a violent insurrection of his own supporters attempted to stop the certification of Biden’s victory. Later in the day, Elon Musk, the poetic muse who inspired Trump’s Martian ambitions, showed up to a rally and greeted the crowd with a Nazi salute. Free at last, indeed.
We can only try to guess what the next four years have to offer. Making predictions out loud would only mean knocking on the devil’s door. With two impeachments, a global pandemic, and a refusal to accept the 2020 election results as an amuse-bouche, any forecast about the main course would be as unpredictable as its chef. Still, one thing yesterday’s inauguration set in stone is that for Trump, everything is always going to be about himself.
Drill, baby, drill!

