revenues by closing loopholes for the wealthiest earners only.
When he said, “Protection will lead to great prosperity and strength,” warning against “the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our jobs,” Trump denied not just his personal history of developing products overseas, but also the net benefits of international commerce. Global prosperity had contributed tremendously to American wealth, and while trade deals had hurt a certain segment of the population, they were hardly the chief driver of domestic job loss. In December 2016, the Financial Times reported that of the estimated 5.6 million manufacturing jobs lost between 2000 and 2010, “85 percent of these jobs losses are actually attributable to technological change—largely automation—rather than international trade.”4
And when he said, “We have defended other nations’ borders while refusing to defend our own,” Trump ignored the fact that Obama deported more illegal immigrants than any president in U.S. history and “more than the sum of all the presidents of the 20th century,” according to ABC News.5 Also missing: the history of how conservatives rejected the 2013 Senate bill, which offered an unprecedented influx of border agents, without offering any alternative in the House. Neither party had been innocent when it came to playing politics with immigration.
Trump was selling plenty of evocative sound bites but few fact-based assessments—and even fewer practical solutions.
The speech was, however, coherent in presenting a worldview that had remained consistent from the moment Trump first began flirting with a White House bid three decades earlier. “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first,” the president said. “Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families.”
The phrase “America First,” the rallying cry of noninterventionists resisting entry into World War II, had been off-limits in the generations since due to its anti-Semitic intimations. The speech was crafted by Steve Bannon as well as Trump’s incoming policy adviser, Stephen Miller, who had been a longtime immigration staffer to Jeff Sessions. Deftly, Miller inserted a phrase to rebut interpretations of xenophobia: “When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.” Yet given the rhetoric of Trump’s campaign, his associations with the likes of Alex Jones and the alt-right, and his incessant pitting of Americans versus non-Americans, it rang somewhat hollow.
Sitting on the dais behind the newly inaugurated president, George W. Bush couldn’t help but hear the “isms” he had warned of eight years earlier: isolationism, protectionism, nativism.
When the speech concluded, Bush made his way off the stage. “That was some weird shit,” he said aloud, according to journalist Yashar Ali.6 (Bush’s spokesman did not dispute the report.)
It was a sentiment shared by many on the dais—not just the Democrats whom Trump had spent the past year bashing (Obama, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton, whose demeanor during her assailant’s inauguration was the stuff of hostage videos), but also the Republicans who had been encouraged by Trump’s post-election performance. They had heard him talk of unity in the wee hours of November 9. They had watched him assemble a generally respected cabinet. They were cautiously optimistic, on the eve of the inauguration, that the incoming president would feel the weight of his office, abandon his trademark bombast, and adopt a more thoughtful, deliberative approach.
And then came “American carnage.”
Trump would not be relinquishing his penchant for provocation—or his appetite for conflict. It wasn’t outwardly apparent at first. He floated through his first hours on the job: After finishing the inaugural address, speaking to a VIP luncheon inside the Capitol (feeling so magnanimous that he singled out Hillary Clinton for a standing ovation), and completing the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, the new president had been paralyzed by wonder upon entering the Oval Office for the first time. “Wow,” he said to Reince Priebus, turning in circles and glancing from carpet to ceiling. “Can you believe it?”
Everything was perfect—until he learned of the crowd-size comparisons.
Days earlier, the incoming president had predicted “an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout.” But while Obama’s 2009 inauguration had been record-setting; Trump’s had not. Obama’s crowd had swelled to some 1.8 million people; using the most generous estimate, Trump’s was one-third that size.
The new president could not suffer this indignity. On the occasion of his coronation, the man who had once felt compelled to vouch for the size of his penis during a televised debate would not stand for unfavorable