January 20, 2017

Trump’s Inaugural Address: A Disgraceful Deception

Trump's Inaugural Address: A Disgraceful Deception

Donald Trump’s inaugural address was a disgraceful extension of the deceptive sales pitch he used to get elected.

Trump repeated his campaign promise to stand up for the forgotten working Americans, to fight the establishment, and drain the Washington swamp of corruption.

But Trump already is breaking that promise by filling his Administration with out-of-touch billionaires, Goldman Sachs executives, and Washington lobbyists who put the profits of large corporations over good wages and health care, public schools, civil rights, and fairness for consumers.

And Trump’s refusal to divest from his businesses and to disclose his tax returns, and his repeated claim that he has every legal right to continue making private business deals as president, suggest his unwillingness to separate public office from private gain — creating a real risk of turning America into a kleptocracy.

It also was a terrible abdication of responsibility for Trump to say nothing about the urgent threat of climate change. Worse, his appointments suggest he will do nothing about it, either.

Trump’s promise of “America First” rang hollow, given his appointment as Secretary of State of Rex Tillerson, who has for decades put the interests of his multinational oil company, Exxon Mobil, above America’s, while collaborating with Trump’s favorite dictator, Vladimir Putin.

Trump’s action-hero declaration that “this American carnage stops, right here and stops right now” was also empty, because violence in America did not stop when he said it. His new White House website trumpets “law and order” but does not even mention police shootings of unarmed civilians and rejects limits on the proliferation of guns.

While Trump went through the motions of calling for a healing of divisions, it was an empty exhortation. Trump could have begun to heal the divides by including a Muslim Imam among religious leaders speaking at the inauguration. He did not, even though there are three million US Muslims. Instead Trump’s only mention of Muslims in the speech was his pledge to attack “radical Islamic terrorism.”

And Trump pointedly repeated the “all talk and no action” language he used just six days ago to attack the congressman and revered civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis.

He showed no humility, and accepted no responsibility for his attacks on women, Muslims, Latinos, the disabled, and others during the campaign. And he said nothing about Hillary Clinton, who sat nearby.

This article also appears on Huffington Post.