One Speech, Two Speech; Red Speech, Gold Speech
The sharp contrast between Trump’s Inaugural Address and Biden’s ‘Red Speech’
By Matthew Mehan, Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Government for the Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government for Hillsdale College in Washington D.C.
At George Washington’s First Inaugural Address, the first president of the United States opted against a list of suggested policies. Instead, he argued, “it will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them.” Such are not, however, the feelings that actuated Donald Trump on the occasion of his Second Inaugural Address, wherein the 47th president decided, with less congeniality, to give just such “a recommendation of particular measures” and, we should add, particular grievances against both the country and his person. Reminiscent of his first inaugural address, but somehow calmed and tempered, with more confidence and command, it was American Carnage more gently put.
And while many of us would wish Trump had the old-time eloquence of our forefathers who held the presidency, while some of us wish he would at least wave off rhetorically such potentially rankling details of policy and prior wrongdoing by his predecessors, sitting behind him and to his left, it is hard to blame him given the last four years. Trump declared from the outset of his laundry list his great intention to bring about an American “Golden Age.” That call rings in sympathetic ears for the majority of American citizens for one, simple reason, and that reason has a first and last name.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election in a chaotic maelstrom of fiery protests, N-95 masks, mail-in ballots, and media manipulations—Floyd, Fauci, Facebook, and the FBI. Biden reigned with a correspondingly chaotic senility. The oldest president ever to hold office, Biden displayed in his presidency the truth of Aristotle’s observation that old men, when they do wrong to others, wish more to injure than dishonor their opponents. And there is no clearer observable contrast between Biden’s injurious presidency and what Trump’s second term promises than what can be seen in the difference between Trump’s inaugural rhetoric and Biden’s infamous Red Speech.
In preparation for early voting in the 2022 midterm election, Biden gave his Red Speech before Independence Hall, at night, with red, white, and blue accent lights. But like the red meat he tossed to his base in that execrable speech, only red light immediately framed his person.
It was a campaign speech, not an official speech as president. But Biden used U.S. Marines, who are properly reserved for official speeches and events, to stand in silhouette before an Independence Hall, bathed in ominous red light. It’s properly called Biden’s Red Speech because of that foreboding color, which matched the overriding emotion of anger he exuded throughout the speech, because in it he attempted to blame so-called Red America as domestic terrorists, and because like a Stalinesque “Red” of yesteryear, he attempted to menace his political opponents and signal to his numerous and powerful bureaucratic underlings that it was open season for lawfare against and persecution of his political opponents. In what might be called a soft charge of treason against a massive swath of the American population, he shouted the following: “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.” It was a mean-spirited speech, designed to inaugurate injury to his opponents while whipping up his base and driving a wedge between Republicans and what Biden called in the speech “MAGA-Republicans”—a massive demonization campaign ahead of the midterms.
Contrast that with the pugilistic laundry list of Trump’s Second Inaugural. It lacked the soaring grace of traditional inaugurals, and it muddled the usually unmixed theme of unity that his predecessors have so often sounded in their inaugural addresses. Instead, Trump took his criticisms and list of policy solutions directly to his political opponents. He promptly and explicitly critiqued Biden’s Department of Justice and, by extension, the strategy made plain in Biden’s Red Speech. Trump proclaimed: “The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.” With the newly replaced Biden and Harris sitting behind him, he later added, “we now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home while, at the same time, stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad.” No Washington’s Inaugural here, but there was in the speech a crucial candor about our present political situation that, while delivered in the awkward venue of an inauguration, has two crucial benefits in an aberrant and unusual political moment like this one.
First, his rhetorical choice to demur from the exalted and unitive tone of typical inaugurations has a distinct mark of an attempt to reestablish candid good faith with the American people and even with his opponents. Trump mentions ugly truths, but truths they are. Trump’s laundry list of grievances and proposed restorative policies have the effect of a checklist that works two ways: it shows the egregious wrongdoings of his predecessors, and it puts the American people on notice as to what Trump intends to do such that they can judge whether his word to them is, in fact, his bond.
Trump said in the speech, “as we gather today, our government confronts a crisis of trust.” The way back from a loss of trust is simple, straightforward candor and “good faith,” a term used in the presidential oath. The loss of trust comes when what people say and what they do no longer match, when they break faith. Trump holds up his predecessor Biden as one who claimed to heal and unite but who instead wounded and divided, going even so far as to lift the blindfold of Lady Justice to attack his political opponents. And Trump offers a list of not vague but precise policy proposals, putting him on the hook to at least attempt to implement them. In inaugural terms, it is an unfortunate breach with the decorum set by Washington’s very first speech of its kind, but these are unfortunately indecorous times, which may recommend a decorum all its own, one that puts accountability at the forefront of the American people’s rightly distrustful minds.
The second crucial benefit of Trump’s grievances and contrasting policies is hiding in plain sight. It dishonors his political opponents. When politicians become used to their opponents avoiding the criticisms that truly embarrass them in favor of sticking strictly to policy disagreements, they maintain a certain honor that they often do not deserve. Trump does not limit himself to a critique of Biden’s policy. His opponents are, yes, “radical,” but they are also “corrupt.” They are not just guilty of implementing bad “policy;” they have committed a “horrible betrayal.” Trump reiterated his intention to avoid a reprise of Democrat lawfare against his own opponents in numerous ways in the address. While I hope that Trump and his attorney general do bring accountability, in a just and, ultimately, clement manner back to the bureaucracy, the choice to dishonor his opponents rather than menace them is a good sign. While Aristotle says of old men like Biden that when they lash out, as in his Red Speech, they seek to wound, the philosopher also says of young men that if they do any wrong to another, it is for the sake of insulting them rather than dealing lasting harm. So it is notable that Trump, though technically an old president, has in his second inaugural imbued his hoped for “Golden Age” with a younger man’s spirit of candid rebuke.