Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post; Trump’s America is a rotten place
"President Trump delivered a campaign speech, not an inaugural address today. That he and his staff do not understand the difference goes to the heart of his insufficiency as a leader. Addressing a shockingly sparse crowd, he painted a picture of a hellish America that can only be restored by turning inward, deciding the world is a burden and our allies are thieves...
What was missing was virtually any vision of what he wants America to be. The most we got was a promise to “build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation” and to get “people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.” Beyond that he cannot describe a renewed America. More opportunities? More productive? More understanding between segments of America?
There was one brief positive moment in the speech when he offered an olive branch to our allies. “We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and reform the world against radical Islamic terrorism which we will eradicate from the face of the earth.” He unfortunately followed it with a creepy statism in which we define our personal relationships through nationalistic loyalty. “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.” We actually have relationships, loyalties and bonds with one another that are the fabric of society and do not need to be redefined as an outgrowth of a new sort of nationalism. Conservatives who value civil society free from government should be horrified — if they have intellectual integrity.
There has never and will not be a better Trump. His vision is dark, false and frightening. He leads by stoking nativism, protectionism (which actually makes us poorer) and seething resentment. God help us all.
Jennifer Rubin writes the Right Turn blog for The Post, offering reported opinion from a conservative perspective."
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