Yesterday, 20 January 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated to be the 47th president of the United States. As Trump begins his second presidential administration, Peter Finn highlights four important takeaways from his inauguration day.
- This article is part of ‘The 2024 Elections’ series curated by Peter Finn (Kingston University). The series has explored the 2024 US elections at the state and national level. If you are interested in contributing to the series, contact Peter Finn (p.finn@kingston.ac.uk).
Mirroring Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985, Trump’s second inauguration was held indoors in the United States Capitol Rotunda due to freezing temperatures. It was scattershot in nature, featured its fair share of odd moments, showed glimpses of the higher ideals Democrats will appeal to when trying to differentiate themselves from Trump, and a return to the themes of Trump’s 2017 inauguration. In the meantime, the filing of a legal case moments after Trump took office is likely a harbinger of things to come. Developing these themes, here are four takeaways from inauguration day 2025:
1. Scattershot
In his 2017 inauguration speech Donald Trump spoke of ills facing US society, talking of “Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system, flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.” Speaking in terms of ‘American carnage’ which, so Trump promised, would end at that moment, Trump painted a bleak picture before a grey sky in Washington D.C. At the time, former president George W. Bush described Trump’s speech as “weird s***”.
Eight years, including Trump’s first term, his subsequent attempts to overthrow the 2020 election, and four years of the Biden administration, separate Trump’s 2017 inauguration speech and his second yesterday. Perhaps scattershot is the word that best captures his second inaugural address. Inconsistent in tone and oddly expansive in subject matter, it ranged from appeals to unity, moments when Trump snarled and decried what he used to call the swamp, to claims that the US would take back control of the Panama Canal and invoked the idea of manifest destiny to justify a US manned mission to Mars. If the speech is in any way reflective of the next four years, then US politics will be dominated by the ever-changing news cycles and handbrake turns that dominated Trump’s first term.
Image source: CSPAN
2. The Democrats’ counter narrative
As the only Democrat speaking at the inauguration, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, who chaired the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, acted as a sound messenger for the appeals to higher ideals her party is likely to adopt while Trump is in power. She said the moment of inauguration was, for those elected to be president, “the moment when leaders elevated by the will of the people promise to be faithful to our constitution, to cherish and defend it.” Further noting that all Americans “must strive to uphold the values enshrined in our constitution — the freedoms, the liberties and, as is inscribed on the entrance of the United States Supreme Court, equal justice under law.” If that was not obvious enough, Klobuchar continued that the ceremony was a “fitting reminder of the system of checks and balances that is the very foundation of our government. Three equal branches of government. That is how, for nearly 250 years, our great American experiment, grounded in the rule of law, has endured.” As the Democrats attempt to push back against policies of the Trump administration in the coming months and years, some of the lofty language will no doubt be lost in the heat and light of everyday politics. But one imagines it will be returned to when they are building up to the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential contest.
3. ‘American carnage’ revisited
Without using the term, Trump returned to the themes that marked his use of the term American carnage in 2017. He spoke of “a radical and corrupt establishment [that] has extracted power and wealth from our citizens, while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair”, arguing that the US government “cannot manage even a simple crisis at home, while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad.” In short, the US government is failing to protect “law-abiding American citizens, but provide[s] sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world.” As in 2017, Trump promised to be the antidote to these ills, saying his election was “a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal, and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom.”
4. Legal wranglings have already begun
Legal cases and official investigations were ever present in Trump’s first term in office. A similar picture is likely to emerge during his second term. In the moments after he took office, for instance, a lawsuit was filed against the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the much trailed agency set to be led by Elon Musk. The lawsuit, filed by the law firm National Security Counselors, claims that DOGE “is an advisory committee subject to the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act”, but is not meeting its responsibilities under the act by, among other things, “failing to ensure that DOGE’s membership is fairly balanced and without undue influence”, and ‘ failing to file an advisory committee charter with all required entities”. As a result, the filing argues, “[d]ue to DOGE’s lack of transparency, little is publicly known about its structure or membership.”
It seems unlikely that DOGE will be the only initiative of the Trump administration to face legal challenges. Looking beyond the 2026 midterms, if the Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives, it’s worth remembering that they will only need a simple majority to once again bring impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
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- Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.
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