There was no pivot. There was no olive branch, no binding of wounds, no lofty summons to the better angels of our nature.
The 16-minute inaugural address that President Trump delivered was Trumpism distilled to its raw essence: angry, blunt-spoken and deeply aggrieved.
He spoke of ending the “American carnage” under President Obama , who sat poker-faced behind him on the stage in front of the Capitol as a light drizzle shrouded the scene. He spoke of a corrupt and self-dealing Washington, enriching itself while the rest of the country has gone to rot.
It was the type of speech — pugnacious in tone, pitch black in its color — reminiscent of the apocalyptic portrait he painted in accepting the Republican nomination in July. It would sound familiar to anyone who attended a Trump rally, or tuned into his series of debates with Democrat Hillary Clinton .
In short, it was a speech that extended the angry, acrid 2016 campaign rather than look ahead to the job of governing a deeply polarized country.
