Inaugural Address--Post #2 (academic): Ask Not What You Can Do for Your Country

We continue our look at the Trump inaugural speech, picking up after the introduction.

For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished -- but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered -- but the jobs left, and the factories closed.

Two themes are introduced at this point in the speech.  The first and most important is the dichotomy between "Washington" and "the people."  As Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson note in their chapter on inaugural rhetoric in Presidents Creating the Presidency: Deeds Done in Words,  perhaps the first and most important role of a presidential inaugural speech is to "constitute the people"--to say who and what "we the people" are.  It is an act of  unification in the wake of an election.

However, starting with this passage, Trump's speech takes a substantially different (and darker) path.  "The people" are unified not in a common purpose or in devotion to common ideals, but as the victims of the federal government itself--the government that Trump now stands at the head of.

Potential parallels to this might be Andrew Jackson's inaugural address or Reagan's first ("government is the problem").  However, as we will see in future posts, Trump's portrayal of this adversarial relationship is far darker and uncut with optimism in the way the these two speeches were.

Part of the tactics involved are the vague phrases "for too long." and "a small group."  The first phrase allows individual audience members to fill in the specifics of the timeline themselves.  If they felt Washington had "reaped the rewards" specifically during the Obama administration, they could safely assume that this is what Trump meant.  But if they felt it had gone on longer, they could read this meaning into Trump's words.

Similarly, "a small group" allows the audience to fill in their own dramatis personae.  Obama? Democrats? The federal government? Politicians in general? Any and all interpretations are open.  Much like the dreaded "They/Them" of paranoid conspiracy rhetoric, the vagueness of "a small group" allows the audience to both enjoy the frisson of fear that comes from the idea of an unseen-but-all-controlling enemy and disperse this fear by populating this group with their chosen enemies--an all-the-more enjoyable pursuit given that it happens in the context of a savior announcing the defeat of this menace.

A second theme that emerges that will pick up steam as the speech continues is the use of monetary terminology.  Here, we are told that the people have "borne the cost" while not sharing in the "wealth" of the nation.  Such language will grow more common in the latter part of the speech.

The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

In a series of antitheses, Trump builds on the "us/them" theme.  The unnamed cabal members have won victories and triumphs in which the people did not share.  Again, vagueness is used, this time in alluding to the victims of this conspiracy: struggling families.  This phrase again allows any audience member to place themselves among the victimized--as long as they felt they had somehow "struggled".

On the other hand, the phrase isn't entirely vague.  It is not struggling people, Americans, or citizens. It is specifically struggling families.  This is an attempt to engage the pathos of the audience by suggesting that the ne'er-do-wells in Washington are particularly victimizing domesticity.  (It also brings up association with "family values"--a phrase that gained traction in conservative rhetoric in the 1980s.).

We also have the use of the language of ownership: our country, our nation's capital, our land; their victories, their triumphs. This will continue throughout the rest of the speech.

That all changes -- starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.

Inaugural addresses traditionally involve some presidential take on the "it's not about me; it's all for you." Often, this takes the form of the president saying that the people ultimately have more power than he does.  In this case, however, Trump suggest that, while the moment "belongs to you" (note the use of an ownership metaphor), it does so precisely because Trump is assuming the presidency.

It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration. And this, the United States of America, is your country.

Trump emphasizes the idea of ownership.  The moment, the day, the celebration, and the nation itself are possessions of "you."

A problematic aspect of this, however, is that it's unclear who "you" refers to here.  At the same time, Trump seems to be attempting to constitute Americans generally as the "you" to whom he refers, but in this context, he also seems to be speaking specifically to his own supporters.  He presumably understands all-too-well that, given his loss by nearly 3,000,000 votes, a minority of Americans are "celebrating."

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.

We have an echo of the time-honored tradition of suggesting that party affiliation does not matter now (a tradition that, as we noted, goes as far back as Jefferson).  However, this is done not in the context of unification, but in further defining the nation in Manichean terms, with "the people" triumphing over the unnamed enemies in government.

And again, Trump gives his audience the ability to read themselves into the phrase "forgotten men and women."

Everyone is listening to you now.

This line encapsulates the contradictory aspect of Trump's attempts to "constitute the people"--the first order of business in an inaugural.  Who is "you"?  And who is the "everyone" who is listening to "you" now?

You came by the tens of millions to become part of a historic movement the likes of which the world has never seen before. At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

The first line of this passage is an obvious case of hyperbole.  Of more interest is the final line.  It is as close as Trump comes to articulating a governing philosophy (another essential component of an inaugural address, according to Campbell and Jamieson). For one, in his view "the nation" is not consubstantial with its citizens.  The nation is a construction that exists independently of the citizenry, and it is created to serve them.

This might seem like a commonplace, but it turns a central component of many inaugural addresses--a call to citizens to action--on its head.  Indeed, it is an almost complete reversal of the most famous line in one of the most famous inaugurals in history:"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

In the vision of citizenship that emerges from Trump's rhetoric, asking what your country can do for you is what all citizens ought to be doing.