Flanked by the towering marble figures of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant in the capitol rotunda, President Donald Trump delivered his second inaugural address to a crowd of eager supporters. Now serving in the shadow of Biden’s four-year interruption, Trump and his MAGA base have returned, arguably with greater fervor and determination than ever before. Unfortunately, this will undoubtedly mean four years of harmful, regressive policies.
One notable element of Trump’s speech, and a clear bellwether of things to come, was his focus on religion and cultural conservatism. Trump invoked God numerous times, most notably in attributing him to the good fortune the President received during his attempted assassination this past September, with Trump having a divine purpose “to make America great again.” The purpose of this message is clear, with Trump signaling firm recognition and support of the conservative evangelical base that has supported the MAGA movement since the movement’s inception. This rhetoric also further solidifies Trump’s anti-abortion attitude, which undeniably helped garner him support from younger male Latinos and other strongly Catholic/Christian demographics during the last election.
Beyond religious motivations, Trump’s deep conservatism was on full display. His decision to re-rename Denali to Mount McKinley sends a clear (if un-impactful) signal of similar actions he will pursue while in office. In particular, his desire to bring the Panama Canal back under U.S. control demonstrates both an eagerness for expansionist, coercive policies over the next four years and a general trend toward reversing many necessary progressive steps since the 1970s. From citing the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as grounds for his anti-immigrant policies to referencing America’s long-defunct “manifest destiny,” Trump seems to be looking back in U.S. history to find advantageous ways of backtracking in social and political progress.
Between Panama and Trump’s quest for Greenland, American foreign policy will likely become more hawkish than ever since Bush’s tenure in the 2000s. However, the significant difference between Trump and Bush is that the current President is setting his sights on everybody, including our allies in Europe. Similarly, his economic predation goes beyond defensiveness against China and into our USMCA partners of Canada and Mexico, who Trump is seeking to impose incredible tariffs on starting the first of February.
One of the most troubling aspects of Trump’s return, and one which will force Democrats to put up a strong and concerted defense for the next four years, is the zeal with which Trump and his team set forth their agenda. On his first day in office, Trump signed 26 executive orders into law and revoked 78 of those issued by former President Joe Biden. These ranged from benign self-service in temporarily raising U.S. flags for his inauguration despite former President Jimmy Carter’s passing to the actualization of significant campaign promises. One of these, the declaration of a national emergency at the southern border, has already seen results with Marines deployed to secure and contain areas of frequent border crossings. Others, such as his sex recognition order and his reversal of DEI policies in federal organizations, will assuredly see a much more significant impact over time.
Further, Trump’s initial actions in office have already threatened to set back America’s climate progress irreparably. He has (again) removed the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, set back Biden’s progress on electric vehicle mandates, targeted construction of new windmills and solar panel facilities, and promised a massive expansion of U.S. oil and natural gas, for which we will “drill, baby, drill.” The economic benefits of this are uncertain, as the veracity of Trump’s newly declared “national energy crisis” is disputed by experts. What is certain is that these policies will serve to deepen our reliance on fossil fuels for years, if not decades, to come.
Perhaps most worrying of all is Trump’s order against birthright citizenship, issued with flagrant disregard for the explicit text of the 14th Amendment. I have little doubt that the Supreme Court will see the impropriety of this order. Still, Trump’s willingness to directly violate key constitutional rights and procedures to fulfill his desires signifies significant trouble. Between this and his filling of most major cabinet positions with people of questionable qualifications and indisputable MAGA loyalty, Trump’s degradation of U.S. institutions will, without question, be a hallmark of his second term in office.
Trump’s threats to American institutions and ideals stretch beyond his actions. Despite harkening back to our defeat of fascism in the Second World War, Trump’s head of the new “Department of Government Efficiency,” Elon Musk, fired up a Nazi salute to a cheering crowd on inauguration day. Although some have debated his precise intentions, Musk’s long time in the public eye should make it clear that he knows how to handle his public appearance, and throwing up that gesture could realistically be anything but an accident on his part. This, coupled with Trump’s promises of a “new Golden Age” for America, seems only to forebode deeply conservative policies which, while having the faintest potential of returning us to past economic prosperity, will have one undeniable effect: to return the U.S. to bygone times of social and political progress.