The Second Era of Trump Begins

His was an uphill path back to the White House, marked not just by the normal battles of politics but by legal prosecutions and two failed assassination attempts. “I felt then and believe even more so now,” Trump said recalling the moment last summer when a bullet came millimeters from killing him, “that my life was saved for a reason; I was saved by God to make America great again.”

When Secret Service agents covered him with their bodies in Butler, Pennsylvania, a bloodied Trump pumped his fist in defiance and shouted, “Fight, fight, fight!” At his second inaugural, he defined that work, declaring “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all these many betrayals that have taken place and give people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”

He said the date would be forever immortalized as “Liberation Day,” promising hundreds of executive actions that would reverse and make only a memory of the Biden presidency. His administration will declare a national emergency at the border and designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations. He vowed to put an end to the government practices of “socially engineering race and gender” into every aspect of life, “all government censorship,” and even birthright citizenship. He marshaled the 19^th-century rhetoric of American exceptionalism and nationalism, casting an eye on both new lands on Earth and in the cosmos. “We are taking it back,” Trump said of the Panama Canal. “We will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars,” he added later, predicting that an American flag would soon be planted on Martian soil.

Mars may be beyond his reach. The federal register is not. The Trump administration placed a desk on stage at the Capitol One Arena in downtown Washington, D.C. His second presidency is expected to begin with a live display of authority as he signs executive order after executive order.

On the steps of the U.S. Capitol, Trump vowed eight years ago that “American carnage stops here and right now.” He made the same promise today but without much of the lofty rhetoric. Instead, the new president was more workmanlike.

Mick Mulvaney, who served as his White House chief of staff, told RealClearPolitics to expect that “Trump 2.0 will be a lot more direct and assertive administration this time around.” A political apprentice no more, Trump returns to power after both remaking the Republican Party in his own image and shifting public opinion on everything from immigration policy to the old consensus on relations with China. And this time, the president has surrounded himself not with converts, but with a Cabinet of true believers in his vision. They were all there to watch their new boss.

A polar vortex sent temperatures below freezing, ostensibly forcing the inauguration indoors where space was limited and Trump’s Cabinet nominees sat side by side with congressional leaders, Supreme Court justices, and foreign dignitaries. Their collective government power was rivaled only by the vast market cap of the billionaires also present under the Rotunda. The three richest men in the world, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, had great seats. Rank-and-file members of Congress watched the government business on television screens from an overflow room.

Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, every living former president, watched the inauguration. That list now includes Biden, whose administration insisted that their final act would be restoring the process of a peaceful transfer of power. Former Vice President Pence, now estranged from Trump, also attended the ceremony. It was lost on none of the attendees that the process played out in the same spot where a mob of Trump supporters tried to foil the certification of the 2020 election. And yet this was unspoken. “Welcome home,” Biden told Trump and the new first lady when they arrived at the White House earlier this morning.

But beyond his ceremonial duties, Biden made the most of his executive power in his final moments, issuing pardons of the defunct January 6th Committee, Gen. Mark Milley, and Dr. Anthony Fauci. The defining characteristic of the recipients: defiance of the incoming president. The extraordinary clemency was billed as a safeguard against a vengeful Trump, but it was not tailored. The pardons were sweeping. The Fauci pardon stretches back more than a decade and begins on Jan. 1, 2014.

He did not forget his own family. In the final minutes of his presidency, Biden preemptively pardoned several close members, including his brother James, citing the “unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me.” The Republican House Oversight Committee saw it differently. They sent a criminal referral of James Biden to the Department of Justice for “making false statements” about his family’s foreign influence-peddling. The chairman of that committee, Kentucky Rep. James Comer, called it “a confession of their corruption.”

“Biden is the worst president in the modern era, maybe ever,” complained Mike Davis, a Trump stalwart and president of the Article III project. “Fortunately, President Trump took out the trash at the White House.”

Trump promised a new day, condemning a status quo where “for many years, a radical and corrupt establishment extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.” On the back foot after an electoral shellacking, the Democratic National Committee issued a statement accusing Trump of “leaving his own supporters literally out in the cold while billionaires worth over $1 trillion get a front row seat.”

Oligarchy is the new charge of Democrats. Just days after rewarding George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Biden warned in his farewell address of an emerging tyranny of the wealthy. Trump, who often touts his own wealth, embraced Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla and Space X, who will soon reportedly work out of a West Wing office. At the Capitol, Musk pumped his fist repeatedly in triumph throughout Trump’s speech.

The executive work is already ongoing. Legislative battles are soon to start. Trump returns to the Oval Office with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress. The difference this time is a GOP on board with his vision and also an American culture increasingly skeptical of progressive values and supportive of the MAGA version of conservative ones. Unlike the last Trump inauguration, celebrities abound in the capital city. Front and center was Carrie Underwood.

The singer, who was tapped to perform at the end of the ceremony, was left waiting on a cue that did not come. When the music did not start, Underwood went it alone. “If you know the words,” she told the assembly, “help me out here.” They obliged and the second inauguration ended with nearly the whole of government singing “America the Beautiful,” a cappella.