He is risen. After dodging an assassin’s bullet and the prospect of jail, Donald Trump staged a political resurrection like no other. On Monday, as he returned to power, he embraced the role of a demagogue on a divine mission.
Sworn in as the 47th US president at the US Capitol in Washington, Trump delivered an inaugural address that cast himself as a holy warrior and made his “American carnage” speech from 2017 seem almost innocent.
The first convicted criminal to take the oath of office channeled eight years of grievance and retribution to roast his predecessor, Joe Biden, sitting just feet away, as both his biological family and adopted family – the tech billionaire boys – looked on.
And in setting out a far-right populist agenda that spanned the border, the classroom and the rapidly heating planet, he reached for the oldest and most ominous political armour.
“My life was saved for a reason,” he said, recalling how he survived an assassination attempt by inches at a campaign rally on a Pennsylvania field last year. “I was saved by God to make America great again … For American citizens, January 20, 2025 is liberation day.”
The speech quickly dispelled notions that Trump might be older, wiser and more unifying this time, that the dire warnings of the election campaign, in which his own former officials branded him a fascist, were just hype in the heat of political battle.
The only bipartisan thing about Trump on Monday was his purple checked tie and opening promise of “the golden age of America”. Vice-President JD Vance, whose swearing in by conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh was another “owning the libs” moment, wore a tie of familiar Maga red.
The rotunda is a big, domed circular room located in the centre of the US Capitol designed to recall the Pantheon, the ancient Roman temple. It is decorated filled with gold-framed historical paintings and marble statues of his past presidents.
As Trump stood at the presidential lectern, to his right were first lady Melania Trump, his adult children and the faces of the tech industrial complex: Elon Musk of Tesla, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai.
To the president’s left were the old guard. Biden, already shrivelled by loss of power, like an old king reduced to a commoner, spent much of the speech with hand over mouth as if trying not to vomit as his legacy crumbled before his eyes. Next to him was the outgoing vice-president Kamala Harris, wearing funereal black and working hard to maintain a poker face. Behind them Doug Emhoff, former president Barack Obama, who was Michelle-less, and the Clintons and Bushes.
Like the ultimate fight nights Trump relishes, the ex-presidents and first ladies’ presence made a spectacle of political gore, cruelty and pain. The group remained riveted to their seats almost every time Trump delivered an applause line that brought everyone else to their feet in rapturous applause.
The new president, who once faced four criminal cases and was convicted in one of them, insisted: “Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents.”
He went on: “As we gather today our government confronts a crisis of trust. For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens while the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.”
These were striking words from a man who has appointed Musk, the world’s richest man, to slash government funding and brought other tech masters of the universe into his orbit. But Trumpism has always been about making brash, blunt and blatant the forces shaping society for years. An oligarchy has long held sway in America. He is now elevating it without apology or shame.
Citing hurricanes and fires, Trump again delivered a made-for-TV roast of his predecessor by stating: “We now have a government that cannot manage a single crisis at home. All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.”
He added: “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal taking place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom.”
Trump vowed: “From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”
He strayed into the territory of his rally speeches, bemoaning dangerous criminals who escaped from mental institutions invading the country, although there was to be no historic first mention of Hannibal Lecter in an inaugural address.
Trump castigated the former administration for refusing to defend America’s borders. His promise to declare national emergencies at the border, and over energy policy (“We will drill, baby, drill”), received more standing ovations.
Wading into the culture wars, Trump declared that as of today it will be official government policy that there are only two genders: male and female. That got one of the biggest cheers of the day among Trump supporters watching on big screens at a downtown Washington sports arena.
What could the rest of the world be making of it all? It knows this face of America has always been there, sometimes in the shadows, sometimes in the sun. Its 47th president insisted that his “proudest legacy will be one of a peacemaker and unifier” and then proceeded to announce that the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the Gulf of America (Hillary Clinton laughed at that). As for the Panama canal, “we’re taking it back”.
With another flourish, Trump promised to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars. A delighted Musk, owner of SpaceX, grinned from ear to ear, evidently delighted by the prospect of more squillion-dollar government contracts. There was a huge roar from a crowd of 20,000 at the sports arena.
The watch party was happening because the inauguration, traditionally held on the US Capitol steps, had been moved inside because of forecasts of frigid weather. As it transpired, this was probably unnecessary: the temperature was 27F (-3C) and Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania still turned up in his trademark shorts.
Still, Trump dodged having a small crowd that he would have to pretend was bigger than Obama’s in 2009. That was the among the first lies of some 30,000 during his first term, according to the Washington Post’s factcheckers.
Being inside Capital One Arena – draped with basketball and ice hockey championship pennants – felt like being inside Trump’s id as the day’s solemn ceremonies unfolded. It was a gaudy pageant with the words “60th presidential inauguration” emblazoned in red and gold on electronic displays and golden oldies booming from loudspeakers, which made for some bizarre juxtapositions.
The image of Biden and Trump walking a red carpet from the White House entrance to a waiting limousine was accompanied by the suitably retro December, 1963 (Oh What a Night) by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. When the camera cut to a close-up of former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani, the crowd roared.
The motorcade to the US Capitol was accompanied by the sound of Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison. As Trump entered the building with wind-blown hair, the supporters cheered again. Cut to Musk: another cheer. Cut to Vivek Ramaswamy: another cheer.
But there were loud boos for Bill and Hillary Clinton as Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond played over the sound system, the crowd joining on, “so good, so good”. Comedian Trevor Noah has joked that the song is the one thing that white people love more than anything else on the planet.
Then Mr Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra boomed as Barack Obama walked in to more boos. Former vice-president Mike Pence, who defied Trump’s entreaties to overturn the 2020 election, suffered a similar fate. When George W Bush, a former Republican president, appeared on screen, someone started cheering, only to be drowned out by boos – a neat metaphor for the party’s ongoing identity crisis.
The booing reached a crescendo when the giant screens showed Biden and Harris walking the shiny floor of the Capitol as if it were the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, or perhaps the Boulevard of Broken Democracies.
Then cheers erupted at the sight of Trump walking through the Capitol and entering the rotunda, where he clasped the hand of his nominee for homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and tried to kiss Melania but couldn’t get past the expansive brim of her hat. The sports arena erupted with chants of “USA! USA!”
Trump was duly sworn in on the spot where a violent mob of his supporters marauded on 6 January 2021. He pointed a playful finger at Chief Justice John Roberts and shook his hand. He turned and shook Biden’s hand and appeared to say: “Thank you, Joe.”
And in that moment Trump’s rise from the political dead was complete. Before offering a prayer, under the gaze of a bust of Martin Luther King, Christian evangelist Franklin Graham had reflected: “Mr President, I’m sure there were times the last four years when you thought it was pretty dark. But look what God has done.”
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Read more of the Guardian’s Trump coverage
-
Trump embraces role of demagogue, claims to be ‘peacemaker’ – follow live inauguration updates
-
Elon Musk appears to make back-to-back fascist salutes
-
Activists ask: is there any point in mass protest?