-The inaugural speech sounded like boilerplate tinpot dictatorship. Full of lies and misrepresentations about the state of America: the main thing that stands out was this idea that American money is being given away to foreign nations for the enrichment of those nations at the expense of the American taxpayer. That notion is absurd but it was point central to Drumpf's "America First" theme. What countries is he talking about? I honestly am not sure. My first guess is China, with whom we certainly have a trade gap, but it is not to China's benefit and to our detriment. We give them money and we get things in return, and we get them in return for immorally cheap, for that matter. We ought to be paying more so the sweatshop laborers can live and work in better conditions. At the same time, our trade with China has elevated their living standards over the last few decades. But there are still working conditions that would be unacceptable to Americans. Anyway, I am getting off on another tangent. It should be mentioned that American foreign aid is actually pretty weak. We give a very small percentage of our GDP in aid to foreign countries and what little we give is often actually used to benefit American firms, the aid money is used by foreign governments to do business with American businesses. The idea that we are rotting away while giving away our tax dollars to enrich foreigners is absurd.
-Another central theme to Drumpf's candidacy and, apparently, now his presidency, is "law and order." Drumpf evokes an image of urban scenes of decay, rot, and, most potently, crime and, to take a phrase straight from his speech, "American carnage." There is no doubt crime is a problem. In this case, however, that fact falls in the "all propaganda has grains of truth" category. He is using the truth that we need less violence in our country to propel a solution that will not make our country better: "law and order." He wants a heavy-handed approach that will either make the problems he cites worse, or create entirely different problems. You can expect a worsening of police violence if his policies are enacted. You can expect a worsening of mass incarceration, a worsening of quality of life for non-white people and, probably, a majority of white people as well.
Portugal tried to solve drug problems by legalizing and carefully controlling all drugs in the country and everything got better. The Phillipines recently elected a violent thug, Rodrigo Duterte, who has ruled with an absolute iron fist in an almost literal war on drugs and the result has been over 6,000 people murdered in extrajudicial killings and tens of thousands of people stuffed into dramatically-overcrowded jail cells. I severely doubt this is solving drug problems but even if it is, the bloody problems it is creating outweigh any benefits. Really what is going on there is worthy of its own webisphere. It is a grievous and wretched thing.
In the interest of conserving time I am going to proceed with a link dump:
Corey Robin compares Reagan's inaugural address to Drumpf's, and concludes that Reagan was at least attempting to convey that he intended to govern for all Americans, while Drumpf's speech indicates his policies are geared towards appeasing a very narrow sector of the American electorate.
The White House website removed sections pertaining to climate change, LGBTQ rights, civil rights, and health care minutes after Drumpf was inaugurated.
One of Drumpf's very first acts after his inaugural parade was to issue an executive order directing federal agencies to "waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay" any taxes or penalties pertaining to the Affordable Care Act / Obamacare.
Drumpf reversed mortgage-fee cuts implemented by Obama.
Violence against water-protectors has escalated recently in Standing Rock
This opinion piece in TIME magazine makes Drumpf's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency sound like he is straight out of Arkham Asylum
One of the most popular memes on social media regarding today has been a comparison of the inaugural crowds for Obama in 2009 and Drumpf today:
I attended a lively march in downtown Minneapolis protesting Drumpf.
Richard Spencer is a prominent spokesperson for the modern incarnation of a white supremacist movement which has been invigorated by Drumpf. To paraphrase a Facebook friend, here he is receiving an Alt-Right:
via GIPHY
The above seems to be a part of a rather destructive fringe of the mostly-peaceful DisruptJ20 protests in D.C. during the inauguration. Here is an AP article.
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