Analysis: The task and the test for Trump's inaugural address
Never has a new president needed a spectacular inaugural address more than Donald Trump does now.
Just after noon on Friday, the real-estate mogul and reality TV star will be sworn in as the nation's 45th president amid fiercer controversy and bigger protests than any incoming commander in chief in modern times. Even during economic depression and world war, civil rights struggles and Vietnam protests, presidential transitions typically have been marked by a sense of national unity and goodwill, even if it doesn't last long.
Not this time.
The polarized era, the blunt weapon of social media, critics' questions about the legitimacy of his election and his own divisive rhetoric since Election Day means that Trump actually seems to be losing ground. His approval ratings in a string of nationwide polls out this week are lower than the 46% of the vote he carried on Nov. 8. His disapproval rating in a new ABC/Washington Post poll is higher than the disapproval ratings of the previous three presidents at this point — combined. That includes George W. Bush, sworn in after his own disputed election.
Standing on the West Front of the Capitol, Trump will address the largest audience of his lifetime as battle lines are being drawn around his presidency. It will be a test for a man known more for his ability to communicate in blistering 140-character tweets than in what has been by tradition a scripted, long-form oration.
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"This is a time everybody's tuned in," former Virginia congressman Tom Davis, a Republican, said in an interview. "This is his opportunity, if not to turn it around, at least to get on a different trajectory."
"I think the goal is to be optimistic; the goal is to be inclusive; the goal is to outline your agenda," Florida Gov. Rick Scott, an early Trump supporter, said. "It's no different than in your business life: If you say where you're going to go, there's a greater chance you'll find people who will help you get there."
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Not surprisingly, previews of the speech by Trump advisers say he will strike the themes that propelled his presidential candidacy. Expect to hear his campaign promise to "make America great again" and the phrase "America first." He'll spotlight his vow to bring back well-paying manufacturing jobs to the Rust Belt and defeat the terror threat from the Islamic State.
"He wants to continue to talk about issues and areas where he can unite the country, bring it together," spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Thursday.
The most successful inaugural addresses have been less a laundry list of legislative goals — that's the stuff of State of the Union speeches — and more about inspiration and aspiration, especially at times of division. "We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists," Thomas Jefferson declared in the country's first peaceful transfer of power, in 1801. During the depths of the Great Depression, in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt reassured Americans, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Even Richard Nixon, after a tumultuous election during a time of race riots, war protests and political assassination, in 1969 embraced conciliation. "We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another," he said.
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But clearly there are limits to what even the most soaring rhetoric can achieve. Nixon, for one, ended up resigning under threat of impeachment in his second term. Abraham Lincoln called on "the better angels of our nature" in 1861, but the Civil War soon followed. In what may be the most eloquent inaugural address in American history, in his second inaugural address in 1865 he urged a riven nation to bind up its wounds "with malice toward none, with charity for all."
That's precisely the message Trump needs to deliver, advised Tad Devine, the top strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination last year.
"What he should do is 'with malice toward none, with charity for all,' " he said. "So far, he's had malice toward everybody from John Lewis to Meryl Streep."
A spate of provocative postings on Twitter — including tweetstorms with the civil-rights icon ("all talk, talk, talk, no action") and the award-winning actress ("overrated") — have grabbed headlines and fueled the frenetic air that has surrounded Trump's transition. On the eve of his inauguration, on Thursday morning, he posted a tweet arguing he wasn't to blame for a divided country.
Trump has taken fewer steps than other presidents-elect in modern times to reach out to the Americans who didn't vote for him, presumably one reason he has gained the approval of few of them. When he embarked on a post-election "thank-you" tour, he went only to states he carried, speaking to supporters in campaign-style rallies. Unlike his recent predecessors, he didn't reach across the aisle to name a Democratic officeholder to his Cabinet.
Now, President Obama has warned he might break with a modern precedent himself. Bush and other recent former presidents have largely stepped away from political combat after moving out of the Oval Office. But at his final White House news conference Wednesday, the outgoing president said he would speak out if he saw threats to "core values," a term he indicated could include establishing a Muslim registry and deporting young undocumented immigrants, the so-called DREAMers.
Trump's defenders cite his remarks on election night, after his unexpected victory, as an apt template for his inaugural address. Then, in a 15-minute speech, reading from teleprompters before a bank of American flags, Trump congratulated Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton on "a very, very hard-fought campaign" and thanked her for her service to the country. He promised to be a president for "all Republicans and Democrats and independents."
On Friday, he'll have another chance to speak to the supporters who will be massed on the National Mall to cheer him — and an unprecedented influx of demonstrators who have flocked to town to protest him.
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