Just as fate brought Donald Trump improbably back to the presidency, there is cosmic irony in the last-minute change of venue for his swearing-in today.
The polar vortex that brought snow and arctic temperatures to Washington meant the official moment of Trump’s comeback triumph had to be moved into the Capitol Rotunda, the very scene of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that Democrats and the media catastrophized to try to destroy him and his America First populist nationalist movement.
Who would have thought back then that Trump would be taking the oath of office in the same sacred place that Democrat Machiavelli Nancy Pelosi used and abused for her devious political games?
She and Joe Biden lied that cops were killed that day, that Trump supporters spread excrement on the walls, that the riot was an insurrection and a terrorist attack worse even than 9/11.
More than 1,500 Trump supporters caught up in the riot have been arrested and hundreds have been sentenced to years in jail for offenses that would have seen most New York thugs let off with a slap on the wrist. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in jail even though he wasn’t in the capital during the riot.
Symbolic
But democracy won. The will of the people has brought Trump back to the symbolic beating heart of our democracy to be sworn in for a second time.
The ceremony will be an exorcism of the malevolence that drove the attempts to destroy him with lawfare, censorship and assassins.
The arctic chill provides a cathartic cleansing before the economic sunshine promised in the “golden era” of Trump.
“We won!” was Trump’s opening line as he took to the stage Sunday night at Washington’s Capital One Arena packed to the rafters with rapturous MAGA fans, some of whom had waited for seven hours in the cold and rain to get in.
“What a good feeling. We like winning, don’t we? . . . And we’re not going to stop winning . . . We’re going to win like never before,” he said. “Tomorrow at noon, the curtain closes on four long years of American decline and we begin a brand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity and pride.”
Trump added, “For the past nine years, you and I fought side by side against the most sinister and corrupt forces on earth. And in our magnificent victory on November 5th, you showed them once and for all that this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you.”
He promised to work with “historic speed to fix every crisis,” signing 200 executive actions day one to close the border, unleash energy prosperity, eliminate DEI, withdraw from the Paris climate accord, dismantle the “bloated” bureaucratic state and reverse Biden’s destructive executive orders.
Get opinions and commentary from our columnists
Subscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!
Thanks for signing up!
“By sunset tomorrow the invasion of our borders will have come to the halt and the illegal border trespassers one way or another will be on their way back home,” he said.
He also promised within days to release the records on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There was added symbolism in that his inauguration fell on MLK Day, and his election win was driven in part by a historic break of black men away from the Democratic Party.
He also vowed to roll back “the destructive and divisive Diversity and Inclusion [and] return the country to the merit system . . . which is what made us great in the first place.”
‘Very happy’
Finally, in an emphatic reversal of the Insurrection Hoax, the blood libel against Trump supporters, he will pardon the J6 defendants who have been treated so poorly.
“You will be very happy with my decision on the Jan. 6th hostages,” he said. “Very happy. I think you’ll be very, very happy.”
There are a lot of very, very happy people in Washington this week as the Bidens slink out the door holding bitter grudges against those in the party he feel betrayed him.
(The tit-for-tat with Pelosi has wound up with Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra slamming former First Lady Jill Biden as “Lady McBiden” and advising her to “put on my big girl pants, play the long game and think about my husband’s legacy,” according to Politico. “There aren’t that many people left in America who have something nice to say about Joe Biden.”)
MAGA has taken over the nation’s capital.
Hardy Trump patriots braving the bone-chilling wind can be seen everywhere carrying American flags, proudly wearing MAGA hats, or driving pickup trucks festooned with Trump decals and slogans like “Cleaning up four years of crap.”
What a difference eight years makes. In 2017, Donald Trump came to a very different Washington, DC to be inaugurated as the 45th president, only to be ostracized and sabotaged, impeached and reviled.
Looking forward
But today, after four years of Biden, Trumpism is cool. NFL players do the Trump dance on the sidelines, Snoop Dogg is playing at the inauguration, TikTok is back, and more than two-thirds of young Americans aged 18 to 29 year feel “optimistic about the next four years with Donald Trump as president,” according to a new CBS poll.
Trump has won the grudging respect of even his most ardent critics, with New York Times columnist David Brooks calling him “the most consequential American politician since Ronald Reagan,” and comedian Dave Chappelle wishing him well on SNL.
You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief at the prospect of competence being restored to government.
America has yet again chosen a builder to rebuild the country and possibly reunite its people.
But for all his talk of unity, Trump is not the pushover he was last time.
A gifted communicator in the visual mode of this era, he sent a message in the official presidential photograph that will hang in every federal building across the country. It is almost identical to his mug shot: his face strong, resolute, and with an air of menace.
This time the people’s will will be done.
