When U.S. Representative Seth Moulton of Salem attended President Donald Trump’s first inaugural address back in 2017, he thought Trump’s reference to building new railways signaled a possible point of bipartisan collaboration with the new administration.
Fast forward eight years, and Moulton says he heard nothing comparably hopeful in Trump’s second inaugural address. Moulton contends the second speech painted an even grimmer picture than the first, notwithstanding the first speech’s memorable references to an “American carnage.”
“I think it will go down in history as the darkest inaugural address ever,” Moulton said of Trump’s second speech, in which he repeatedly described a nation mired in disarray and decline. “It was more of a rant than a speech ... a grievance-filled diatribe trying to defend himself.”
Moulton said he’s especially concerned, in the wake of Trump’s address, that the president will ignore the rule of law as he pushes to secure the southern border and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
Moulton, who is a veteran, was also worried by Trump’s implication that the U.S. might retake the Panama Canal through the use of military force.
“It is a problem that China has influence on the Panama Canal, and we absolutely should do something to solve that,” Moulton said. “But that’s not about invading Panama, which is what it sounds like he wants to do.”
Like Moulton and most other delegation members — though not U.S. Senator Ed Markey or U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley — Senator Elizabeth Warren of Cambridge attended Trump’s second inaugural. She said she was struck as much by what Trump didn’t mention as by what he did.
“Lots of news about how he wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico and take back the Panama Canal, but I didn’t hear anything about how he actually plans to lower costs for working families,” Warren said. “I didn’t hear the words 'housing costs’ or 'housing construction’ or 'more housing.’ I didn’t hear words about healthcare and how we’re going to get it and how we’re going to afford it and bringing down the cost of prescription drugs ... I didn’t hear anything about costs to families, and for me that’s the most urgent issue.”
As Warren sees it, Trump’s references to retaking the Panama Canal and embracing a more muscular foreign policy function as misdirections that conceal a lack of engagement with serious economic challenges.
“I am worried that his idea of an expansionist America is a way to distract from problems that we need to deal with right here,” Warren said. “If Donald Trump has a chance to beat his chest and get everybody to go talk about what’s happening in Panama or what’s happening in the naming the Gulf of Mexico, then we’re not going to focus on problems we’ve got.”
U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan struck a similarly skeptical note, saying the range of proposals floated by Trump in his speech call into question his focus on bettering the economic realities of ordinary men and women.
“There are certain things that were covered today — renaming Mount Denali as Mount McKinley, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, declaration of genders,” Trahan said. “I think what we want to make sure we’re holding the administration accountable [on] is a commitment to lowering costs. When I go back home, that’s what I still hear most about.”
U.S. Rep. Richard Neal of Springfield remarked on what he described as a vindictive tenor to Trump’s second inaugural address.
“I’ve seen presidents who really didn’t care much for each other, in the past, using the occasion as a point of national healing, and to acknowledge things that former presidents did that they actually agreed with and thought were good policy,” Neal said. “But today he didn’t take the moment to even thank Joe Biden for 50 years of service to our nation.
”I think he was hectoring the former president,“ Neal added.
U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Newton had planned to attend the inauguration but was unable to due to a flight cancellation. Watching from afar, he had a different take on Trump’s tone.
”I heard two different speeches,“ Auchincloss said. ”One speech was clearly Trump in his own words, who is feeling angry and vindicated and is pursuing the typical megalomaniac approach to governance that defined his first term and defined his campaign.
“The second speech was clearly written by staff and advisors around him who wanted him to sound presidential, and who wanted him to be a unifier describing America as a great nation with even greater days ahead,” Auchincloss added. “And I think that’s going to be a tension throughout his second term ... Trump the administration versus Trump the man.”
Auchincloss — who like Moulton is a veteran — also expressed concern about Trump’s plans for reasserting American influence in, and possibly ownership of, the Panama Canal, in the name of reducing Chinese influence there.
“Instead of bullying a small ally, he should be getting tough on China — he’s doing the opposite right now,” Moulton said. “He is bending over backwards to accommodate Xi Jinping by extending an olive branch over TikTok, despite the fact that Xi Jinping is using TikTok to indoctrinate Americans and pump propaganda into our youth. Meanwhile, he’s strong-arming a country with a population less than New York City that has been an ally for decades.”
