A triumphant aura swirled around Donald Trump as he gave his inaugural speech, inflamed by the growing support of imperialist Big Capital for his administration, which was salivating over financial deregulation, deregulation in artificial intelligence, tax cuts for the super-rich, and renewed enthusiasm for exploiting America’s oil and gas fields to the fullest. Due to the cold, the ceremony was moved inside, and Trump gave his speech to an exclusive room filled with members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Big Tech billionaires who will play a central role in his administration. The Democrats, who just a few months ago claimed that Trump was a fascist, shook his hand and praised the peaceful transfer of power. 

To begin the speech, Trump declared that “the golden age of America begins right now.” Despite the fact that he did not win the election by a landslide and got fewer votes than Biden, Trump said, “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all these many betrayals that have taken place and give people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy and indeed their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.” This sense of having a strong mandate shaped the entire speech. 

Putting forward rhetoric aimed at demagoguing the workers who “made America great” in an overtly religious atmosphere, Trump’s speech was a combination of a loaded imperialist agenda — particularly aggressive on Latin America — that literally alluded to restoring the “manifest destiny” of U.S. imperialism as an internationally respected and admired superpower with a so-called “revolution of common sense” that seeks to severely attack basic democratic rights. It was an even more right-wing version of Ronald Reagan’s “City on a Hill” speech, in which Reagan also tried to claim the banner of “common sense” and advocated peace through strength. Trump intentionally placed himself in conversation with William McKinkey — who was known in his day as the “Napoleon of Protection” — and Theodore Roosevelt, specifically Roosevelt’s building of the Panama Canal. And it received cheers and applause from capitalists like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who were part of a contingent of the super-rich who attended the inauguration as VIP guests of the president after donating significant sums to his campaign and the inauguration ceremony itself.

President Trump is expected to sign as many as 100 executive orders within hours of taking office today, and in his speech, he said he will sign an executive order declaring a national emergency at the border (this received close to a complete standing ovation from the entire room) and deploying troops. He also promised to begin the process of mass deportation, and he continued his demonization of immigrants. It is clear — as Trump said in his second speech of the day, to those gathered in the Congressional overflow room — that immigration is his number one concern and he will attempt to create much more unfavorable conditions for immigrants and oversee mass deportations. 

On foreign policy, Trump adopted a more hawkish tone than he typically does and gave a speech that promised more aggression toward Latin America. Indeed, the aggression toward Latin America that we have been seeing from Trump sharpened during the speech as he declared that he was “taking [the Panama Canal] back” because China is using the canal and the government of Panama has not sufficiently been cooperating with the United States’ interests. For Trump, securing these trade routes is an essential part of this program to reassert U.S. hegemony in the region. Indeed, over half of U.S. imports pass through the Canal, making it a location of key geostrategic importance. Furthermore, two key ports on the Canal are operated by Chinese companies, pointing to the growth of China’s influence in the region. Establishing U.S. control over the Canal would require a significantly escalated conflict with Panama. 

Trump’s plan to send troops to the Southern border to “stop the invasion”  and designate cartels as terrorist organizations increases military threats to Mexico and essentially lays the groundwork for the military to intervene in Latin America. The speech featured a manifest destiny approach that promised to expand U.S. territory — even going so far as to include Mars as a place where the U.S. will plant its flag. Claiming that he wants to be known as a “peacemaker and unifier”, Trump said that “we will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.” However, he is still perfectly happy to threaten (and use) the military in order to advance U.S. interests, which are taking on a new expansionist element. 

Another key part of the speech was what Trump called “the common sense revolution,” which appears to consist of demagogic and empty compliments to workers — such as the autoworkers and Teamsters, who Trump specifically shouted out in the speech — while severely attacking immigration and so-called “woke.” Trump spoke strongly against schools, claiming they were teaching students to hate themselves and America, and promised to severely attack trans rights in his executive orders. This section of the speech is in line with what we have previously called an “austerity without rights” approach, in which attacks against workers are unleashed alongside attacks on the specially oppressed. The speed of the anti-rights attacks is intentional, and it will be important to respond to these attacks by beginning to organize and fight back against the Far Right. That Trump can even claim that his policies are “common sense” shows that the bipartisan regime has largely normalized Trump.   

He also said that he will pass a national energy emergency bill lifting restrictions to the oil companies to go full time with the “drill baby drill” promise that has the oil industry so excited as well as ending the electric vehicle mandate implemented by Biden. He argued that these energy policies will revive the American economy, building a prosperous future for citizens. 

Trump has been making the most of the deep discontent against the Biden administration that oversaw a genocide in Gaza (with a fragile ceasefire reached in part because Trump leaned on Netenyahu) and inflation raising prices for the American working class. Emboldened, Trump promised to “end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit based.” This is a threat to many programs from affirmative action to DEI trainings to accurate school history text books and so much more. Trump’s strength relies on the fact that the Democratic Party is demoralized, disorganized, and increasingly embracing the rhetoric and agenda of the right wing. 

Taking the most of the momentum he has gained, Trump intends to move quickly making significant changes from the government, and he insisted that his administration was preparing the largest operation against illegal immigration ever. He also reiterated that he will impose tariffs on U.S. trade partners. He promised so much revenue from tariffs that he is creating an “External Revenue Service” to manage the funds.

Almost immediately after the inauguration speech, Trump made his way to the spillover room, filled with lesser elected officials who didn’t get invited to the inauguration (like Texas Governor Greg Abbott) and other Trump supporters. There, Trump gave the “real” inauguration speech — the one he told the crowd he wished to give but was stopped by, according to him, Melania Trump and JD Vance. In his typical Trump campaign speech style, he promised to free the January 6 “hostages” as well as claiming once again that he won the 2020 election. He explained that anti-immigrant policies are the very heart of his campaign, that immigration was more at the center of his politics than even inflation. And once again, he made overtures to the working class, specifically to the Teamsters and Sean O’Brien, arguing that unionized workers stand with him. This meandering, self aggrandizing, far-right speech with consistent jabs at Vance for making him change his original speech is the “real” Trump who will today pardon the January 6 Far Right and engage in attacks against immigrants and other oppressed people. Just an hour after the end of his speech, the CBP One app’s functions relating to asylum claims were removed, making good on Trump’s anti-immigrant promises. 

Trump is emboldened in the current moment in large part because the traditional leaders of the working class (the NGOs and union bureaucrats) are negotiating to work with Trump. In the weekend before the inauguration, UAW president Shawn Fain announced he is ready to “work with Trump” — as did Bernie Sanders. Teamsters International President Sean O’Brien has been working with Trump for months. Clearly, these union leaders will not lead the struggle against Trump. Rather, workers, students, and the oppressed need to organize themselves and build bodies of self-organization inside their workplaces, unions, organizations, and communities. These bodies can be the basis through which we can build the fight against Trump, the Far Right, increased nationalism, and the attacks on our democratic rights. It is time to harness the rage we all feel and organize to combat the far-right government of Donald Trump and win ourselves a better world.