I can honestly say that I have greeted every inauguration of a newly-elected President with hope, respect, optimism and good will, every one of them, with no exceptions. I fervently believe that this is how all Americans should regard Inauguration Day, and for most of our history, that was how the vast majority of the nation did treat the swearing in of a new President. A major kick to the solar plexus of that tradition was delivered by former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell when he said, though well after Barack Obama was sworn in, that he saw his party’s mission as making sure Obama was a one-term President. In this he was tracking the rhetoric of the late Rush Limbaugh, whose similar sentiments about Democratic Presidents were routine during the Clinton Presidency.

There is hope: the Democratic and progressive demonization of President Trump pales compared to what he was subjected to in 2016, but the Trump Deranged are probably more vocal and more numerous than they were then. It is only that there are more open-minded, reasonable Americans now willing to welcome a new President, even Trump, since the Democrats have left such chaos in their wake.

As I noted in a post yesterday, Joe Biden’s unethical prospective pardons got Inauguration Day off to an ugly, deplorable start. The anti-Trump press, that is, most of the news media, certainly were not in a patriotic or generous mood. “Trump Celebrates in Washington at Rally Laced With Exaggerations and Falsehoods,” said the Times on its front page. On my Facebook feed, most of my friends were behaving like petulant children rather than informed citizens interested in giving a new leader a chance. “Buckle up, y’all. They’re likely to overplay their hand. But that is going to suck even if we can turn them back.They’re also going to use every story, algorithm, and lever they can to divide the resistance. It’s how they got just over the line last November. Let’s not be played like the MAGA marks got played,” wrote one. “A lot of dystopian fantasy literature with evil rulers I have loved for many years has been resonating very differently with me since 2016,” wrote another. “Someone like Trump, an amoral, power-hungry demagogue, is what the founders feared most when they created the presidency,” was another friend’s unbiased analysis. This post was wildly liked: “I will be employing the ‘unfollow’ and ‘unfriend’ buttons with ruthless precision. Some of you… I love you, but you backed the bad guys, and your boasting about it when it’ll directly harm my family and my community and my neighbors… is indefensible. Yours is a door I won’t be knocking on for refuge if I ever need it. ”

Nice.

Because the people who faked a Presidency and trashed the established processes in choosing a candidate while calling half the nation fascists and garbage were the good guys. Got it.

In Trump’s typically mixed bag of an Inaugural address, it was telling that he emphasized “common sense.” Not only does the phrase have resonance with our rebellious history, it also highlights the fact that it was so much weird policy advocacy on the Left that made Trump President again. Letting in millions of illegal aliens doesn’t make sense. Picking high level government officials because of their race, ethnicity and gender rather than their demonstrated ability doesn’t make sense. Making “diversity” a priority of the armed forced doesn’t make sense; running the National Debt up to unprecedented heights doesn’t make sense; defending biological men competing in women’s sports doesn’t make sense; forcing alternative energy on the public before the technology is sufficient to replace fossil fuels doesn’t make sense; reducing police forces and ignoring misdemeanors doesn’t make sense; never firing incompetents because they are “historic” doesn’t make sense.

The fact that so many of the Trump Deranged, a category that now includes most of the entire Axis of Unethical Conduct, described Trump’s speech as “dystopian” is signature significance. Of what you ask? It is a position that can only be taken by anti-American assholes, one-world government fans and socialists, to be blunt. A new President’s ringing rejection of American apologies and groveling, an assertion of pride, self-confidence and philosophical and patriotic certitude is only dystopian to the kinds of people who want more censorship while trying to win the White House by extolling abortion and calling the opposition Nazis. John F. Kennedy pointed America to the moon and was hailed as a visionary. President Trump said that the United States would plant its flag on Mars, and these people mocked him for it.

The speech was also a pointed rejection of the DEI chapter of The Great Stupid as well as the cancel culture, statue-toppling and political correctness that this destructive cultural wave has inflicted on us. Trump’s recent embrace of the Presidency of William McKinley (above), the Republican who, ironically, succeeded the only other President to have split terms, Grover Cleveland, was carried into the speech yesterday, when Trump pledged to restore the assassinated 25th President’s name to the highest mountain in the territorial U.S., Alaska’s Mt. Denali. In 2015, Barack Obama stripped away the only prominent memorial to McKinley to pander to Native Americans. At the time, I wrote in part,

“Probably not one in 20 Americans could tell you three facts about William McKinley, our 25th President. He was thoroughly overshadowed by Teddy Roosevelt, the flamboyant and transformative Chief Executive who succeeded him when he was assassinated—that, by the way, is the one fact that one in 20 probably do know. Probably three-fourths of those ignorant 20 know the name Mount McKinley, however, and that it is the tallest mountain peak in the United States.

“That alone was one very good reason to keep the mountain named as it was. A nation and its culture requires continuity, tradition, reverence and respect to its past, and it is important for a nation to have abundant reminders of  important historical figures who would be forgotten over time without landmarks, memorials, monuments, holidays, town names, statues and streets that prompt this kind of exchange with one’s children and grandchildren:

“Who was McKinley, daddy?“

“…Or Lincoln, or Washington…or Obama. A nation that respects and strengthens these bonds with its own history helps ensure that the public maintains a common understanding of the nation’s character and mission. In the case of the United States, it reinforces the vital concept ours is a nation of one people, not warring tribes and factions. This is especially true of our Presidents, who were and are the leaders of the entire nation, not just specific regions, states and nationalities.

It is not surprising that Barack Obama back-handedly removed the name of a predecessor from a mountain for narrow and short term political advantage, because he does not see the nation the way I just described it—which was, it is important to note, very much the way William McKinley saw it. “The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation,” he said. “Our differences are policies; our agreements, principles,” he said. That there could be anything controversial about having a mountain within the United States named after a President of the United States would have baffled him.

“It would also have shocked him that any President would try to divide the country rather than unite it, but that’s our Barack. His entire political rise and preferred method of maintaining power has been to emphasize group identity politics over patriotism and nationalism. This is yet another example, and one that is likely to be forgotten in a day or two—you know, like William McKinley.  It is not as inconsequential as it seems.”

So bravo to Trump for that ethical gesture.

President Trump launched a new democratic norm yesterday: taking literally the “Day One” campaign promises and immediately signing dozens of Executive Orders ranging from the trivial (declaring that in the future flag will fly at full staff on an Inauguration Day) to the symbolic (leaving the phony Paris climate accords) to the legally dubious and symbolic (ending birthright privileges, which was immediately the target of an ACLU lawsuit). This will now be routine aspect of the day when a President from the opposing party of his predecessor is sworn in. Perhaps we should thank Barack Obama, who used the autocratic Executive Order device as the primary tool of his administration, thus making much of his Presidency’s policies vulnerable to quick reverasls with hostile strokes of the pen. As a new tradition I like it, and so, I suspect, will most Americans. Our culture admires strong and assertive leaders even as it reflexively resists authority, one of many ingrained features of the United States that progressives seem incapable of understanding.

Yes, there was a strong element of gloating in the Trump speech that clashed with the promise to seek unity. It would have been more admirable and ethical to avoid temptation, but Trump is Trump, and the Democrats did try to lock him up, got him shot, and called him Hitler, after all. You can’t blame him for wanting to run their noses in it.

There were no riots around Washington, D.C. yesterday, and even the protests were pretty subdued (the pussy hats were back, though). I wonder if there would have been much more tantrum-throwing by the bitter “resistance” had the city not been locked down by the most extreme police security anyone here has seen since 9/11.

A couple other random notes:

—Searching for a new low, the Axis media, including PBS, stooped to accusing Elon Musk of giving a Nazi salute. These people defy satire. They begin to believe their own lies.

—Carrie Underwood waited an eternity to do it, but she finally behaved like a professional artist should and stepped up to sing “America the Beautiful” a capella when her accompaniment glitched. This is why, I presume, Carrie only sang a single verse, which was too bad, because that verse extolling “Pilgrims’ feet” always makes me giggle.

ADDED: I just learned that Sen. John Fetterman attended the swearing in ceremony in his trademark hoodie and shorts. He sat in the front row, too. Res ipsa loquitur.

ADDED: This was supposed to be in the original post—Michael Steele, the unethical, foolish former GOP National Committee chair and one of the dumbest political hacks on the planet, said on MSNBC yesterday that he didn’t understand why Presidential inaugurations don’t happen in March like they used to. He was unaware that a Constitutional amendment moved the date forward because modern transportation made waiting five months after an election to get a new President into the White House both unnecessary and undemocratic. Imagine what the Biden cabal would have done if it had five full months to try to sabotage Trump’s incoming Presidency. The fact that this certifiable idiot is the best token Republican MSNBC can recruit eloquently speaks of just how unprofessional the most biased new source extant is.