The second striking feature was the chamber’s bifurcation. On one side, Republicans stood and almost continuously cheered. On the other, Democrats sat stony-faced and mostly silent, with the occasional round of boos. Many filtered out long before Trump had stopped talking.
The speech’s longest section was devoted to the bane of illegal immigrants. If that offers any pointers, Trump’s deportation campaign looks set to intensify soon.
A MORE SERIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT
Anyone seeking the philosophical glue holding this speech together would have come up short. It is hard to make conventional sense of what Trump said.
The elevator version is that America has entered a new golden age because Trump is back in charge. The content was neither libertarian nor traditionally conservative, or even conventionally nationalist. It was pure Trumpian personalism.
As such, it is likelier to be remembered as a spectacle than for the content of what he said. Indeed, when historians look back on Mar 4, 2025, his speech might barely rate a footnote.
Across the Atlantic, Germany’s incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on Tuesday declared his goal of scrapping the country’s sacred debt brake in order to re-arm Germany. That, rather than golden domes or planting the stars and stripes on Mars, is an announcement to take seriously.
