Media, Politics

DONALD J. TRUMP — AMERICA’S 45TH PRESIDENT

donald_trump_president-elect_portrait_croppedAs I discussed in my column yesterday, I stayed at home today to watch the inauguration with my kids and to celebrate America’s 71st time that a democratically elected president has taken the oath of office (and our 58th formal inauguration). While my brother and family from Chicago went to the Mall to protest, we raised a toast to the country and the new president for the future. On this day, we celebrate a constitutional system that has weathered wars, depression, social unrest and every type of national crisis. Yet, it (and we) remain. There are many constitutions that are more poetic in language or detailed in powers, but none has the record of this amazing document. It is the common article of faith of a free people and today’s ceremony represented our commitment to a nation governed by a free people.

I was on the mall last night to do interviews and it was a rather surreal experience with streets cut off and massive tents on the Mall. I watched the fireworks from the media tent between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. In a foreshadowing of today, there was a protest at the Trump Hotel where pepper spray was used by police. Over all, it was quiet however and, away from the White House, the streets like Constitution were largely abandoned late at night. Since my car could not get anywhere near the Mall (a change from prior inaugurations), I ended up walking a couple miles to find the car sent by the studio. It was actually very interesting to walk through the streets the night before. There was a sense of something immense about to happen.

I tend to be a stickler for tradition and, for that reason, I was very disappointed to see Nancy Pelosi sporting a button to protect health care. Politicians are expected to put politics aside and appear in a unified nonpartisan front. She was right to appear and not yield to the impulse of over 50 Democratic members to boycott the Inauguration. However, she snatched pettiness out of the jaws of dignity by wearing a political button.  I share the concern over health care but there is a time and place for advocacy.  I noticed that in the executive order signing shortly after the Inauguration, Pelosi was no longer wearing a button.

I had the same reaction to those people in the crowd chanting “Lock Her Up” when Hillary Clinton came out. It was a remarkably classless act and trashed our tradition of coming together as a nation.

224 thoughts on “DONALD J. TRUMP — AMERICA’S 45TH PRESIDENT”

  1. Professor Turley, thank you for the positive and thoughtful article. It’s best to respect and enjoy the peaceful transfer of power. If one is so included to throw political mud, it can wait until the next working day.

  2. At some point tonight, Donald Trump is going to go to bed. All the pomp and circumstance will be over, and it’ll finally be quiet. And he’ll stare at the ceiling while the enormity of the responsibility he has taken on hits him. Just like Barrack Obama, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton, and all his predecessors did before him. Regardless of their political differences, all of our Presidents have had that stark realization on their first day in office of the weight of their responsibility. All of our Presidents have aged very rapidly in office. And I am sure that the last day in office, when they leave in Executive One (and the previous incarnations), that it must be a poignant, bittersweet, very emotional moment.

    I had a bad experience with Obamacare, but Obama served as our President, and I wish him and his family well. And I wish President Trump, First Lady Melania, and their children well and good luck.

    1. All of our Presidents have aged very rapidly in office. A

      No, they haven’t. And you can review the before-and-after photographs to prove it to yourself. Or consider:

      George Bush the Elder: has survived 28 years since his inauguration, now 92 years old.
      Ronald Reagan, survived 23 years after his inauguration, d. aged 93.
      Jimmy Carter, survived 40 years since his inauguration, now 92 years old.
      Gerald Ford, survived 32 years after his inauguration, d. age 93.
      Richard Nixon survived 25 years after his inauguration, d. age 81.
      Dwight Eisenhower, survived 17 years after his inauguration, d. age 79
      Harry Truman, survived 27 years after his inauguration, d. age 88
      Herbert Hoover, survived 35 years after his inauguration, d. age 90.

      Per the US Public Health Service, the life expectancy of a generic 62 year old man in 1950 was about 16 additional years. Eisenhower beat that, and he’s the only one of the foregoing who cut it close. The two with abbreviated lifespans were John Kennedy (assassinated) and Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy also had Addison’s disease and took cocktails of pain killers administered by Max (“Dr. Feelgood”) Jacobson. Johnson was something of a lush who smoked heavily much of his adult life (including the last four years).

      1. Addendum: Franklin Roosevelt had a life expectancy of 21.5 years in 1933 and lived only 12 years. He’d survived a bout of what might have been either Polio or Guillain-Barre Syndrome (limiting his mobility) and he smoked cigarettes.

  3. We’ll be getting more of their weak excuses etc. while their party is crumbling with one group heading to the extreme far left as secular regressices, one becoming the New Democrats and that one is interesting as a thought or idea, one part going Green and the rest just your basic garden variety socialists of one kind or the other.

    The lead element for control is the current DNC Chair and her ummm group evolving as the New Democrats with a mission of wiping out the long long since inception tag as the party of slavery, racism, and anti civil rights, I wish them well. First battle is get rid of reverse racism.

    And don’t forget the current battle between the party hacks and the young turk-eys of the next generation.

    That party is not only impotent it’s in shreds. Right now I doubt they could elect a dog catcher.

      1. Yes, it was the same person! I read the original comment by PaulCS to him, too. However, it is not surprising that IsaacB did not learn anything new. Hey, it’s what he does! Not absorb facts.

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

          1. No. It’s a mental barrier. His input device is fried or something. He is still running on a 50 year old program, and the “interrupt protocols” aren’t working. I doubt that it is just a bad cmos battery in him. I guess somebody needs to try the “kill -9 -1” process on him, assuming he is running a Unix or Linux based operating system. Then he could be rebooted, and his internal clock set forward to 2017.

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

  6. Mark Zuckerberg is planning on running in 2024. All these sore butt Hillary whiners will cast aside their lack of political/military screed of today and embrace their narcissistic, autistic, hero Zuckerberg. Liberals have made hypocrisy an art form.

  8. Hey Issac, are these the same polsters that predicted a Clinton electoral landslide!

  9. Nothing you can say, can tear me away
    From New Guy
    Nothing you could do, cause I’m stuck like glue
    To New Guy

    I’m sticking to my guy, like a stamp to a letter
    Like birds of a feather, we stick together
    I can tell you from the start, I can’t be torn apart
    From my guy

    Nothing you could do
    Could make me be untrue
    To my guy (my guy)

    Nothing you could buy
    Could make me tell a lie
    To my guy (my guy, my guy, my guy)

    I gave my guy, my word of honor
    To be faithful, and I’m gonna
    You’d best be believing, I won’t be deceiving
    My guy

    As a matter of opinion
    I think he’s tops
    My opinion is
    He’s the cream of the crop

    As a matter of taste
    To be exact
    He’s my ideal
    As a matter of fact

    No muscle bound man
    Could take my hand
    From New Guy (my guy)

    No handsome face
    Could ever take the place
    Of New Guy (my guy, mu guy, my guy)

    He may not be a movie star
    But when it comes to being happy
    We are

    There’s not a man today
    Who can take me away
    From My Guy

    (Musical Interlude)

    No muscle bound man
    Could take my hand
    From New Guy (my guy)

    No handsome face
    Could ever take the place
    Of New Guy (my guy, my guy, my guy)

    He may not be a movie star
    But when it comes to being happy
    We are

    There’s not a man today
    Who can take me away
    From New Guy (whatcha say?)

    There’s not a man today
    Who could take me away
    From New Guy (tell me more!)

    There’s not a man today
    Who could take me away
    From New Guy

  10. He will get the same amount of respect that was shown by the right to the last President. None. Turley, you should be ashamed at supporting this evil man.

    1. This President is an accomplished businessman. The previous president was a senator of brief tenure and no special distinction having been a state legislator of no special distinction, having been an associate in a 12-man law firm and manifested no special distinction having been a law school lecturer of no special distinction (bar specializing in boutique courses).

      1. Issac: Am I Fish Mouth or is Trump?
        I did not mean to offend. I heard on another website that “New Guy” is taking hold for the Donald.

  12. Outgoing Obama, with 60%+ approval rating and incoming DDT with less than 40% approval rating. DDT still ranting, raving, lying, on another planet. The 40% and less that approve are represented on this blog. Read the comments to understand the mentality of the miserable angry dupes that brought us this shame. Not since the three stooges has America had something this shameful. If I believed in god, I would ask it to help us. But, I do believe in America and also believe we will weather this idiot. The only question is how much damage will be done and how much will have to be undone.

    3. Also you Poutine slurping, frozen brained, hoser, how dare you blaspheme the Howard brothers and Larry Fine.The Stooges are as American as Pop Tarts,Philly Cheesteaks and Old Bay Seasoning.
      Keep your critiques of America to yourself until you can vote here yourself.
      Wanna be a citizen, I will personally sponsor you and then proudly watch you raise your hand and then become one.
      Until then please consider yourself a pimple on the ass of Justin Beiber.

      2. The three stooges to which I refer are Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney. Or have you forgotten with your immense cranial capacity. As far as voting, I am an American, a naturalized American, one by careful thought and choice, not simply by way a faulty rubber. As far as complaining goes, I have frequented this blog for some time and read the mindless blather pillorying Obama, one of the most successful American Presidents, so given fish mouth who has a less than 40% favorable rating and who is still playing to the idiots in the mob, I won’t be going away. I voted for Obama twice and reluctantly for Clinton. I would have voted for Bernie as would most other Americans. The problem with America is its system of government and elections. No system is meant to endure without being addressed judiciously from time to time. This is no longer a democracy but an oligarchy. There simply have got to be better choices. The focus should be on why they aren’t making it to the podium. So, you ketchup swilling, pop tart gorging, member of the most obese nation on earth, pull your head out from where the sun don’t shine and take a look around. We’re number one won’t cut it forever.

        2. I am now aware of your true provenance. My head aint’ up my ass my friend.
          Again my advice is to not complain about the game but to game the game.
          Pay attention to the quick solutions and the demand for fealty.

          It’s what happens AFTER, Trump that matters.
          We have to be vigilant and thoughtful of what got him in the top spot and do we want to as liberals, replace him with a clone of own brand and recipe or with something genuine that we are willing to die for to prove rejection?
          DDT as you refer to him, is acting right now in someone’s name, is it is yours?
          If not then speak to what you want to have happen my friend, not what with what you disagree with, that is “apparently” happening.

          Bypass ridicule and go for constructive replacement.

          Rinse and repeat, don’t poke and provoke.

          Replace without regret, commit and confirm.

          Bread is the simplest of needs, based on the simplest of recipes, get ready too serve yours toasted.

        3. Issac,
          Take the high road and refuse to meet insults with insults. Good grief.

          “This is no longer a democracy but an oligarchy.”
          True, but that does not mean the Constitution is wrong, it means that wicked people have twisted it to suit themselves. We need to untwist it.

      3. Roscoe Coltrane – I have lost so much respect for you. Moe as the best 3rd Stooge? Dude, it was Curly by a mile.

        1. Moe was the 1st stooge, and the most entertaining of the bunch. The interplay between Moe and Larry was always more engaging than Curley’s antics.

          1. DesperatelySeekingSusan – first, taste is personal. second, I think the Stooges are childish and their humor cruel. third, I am a Buster Keaton fan.

            2. I like Harold Lloyd, too. My father used to watch those shows on TV with me when I was little. BTW, I came across something you might like on Amazon, which is the “Free Books” series by Michael Caputo. You pay like 99 cents for the kindle book, which then has links to several hundred free books in the series. The subjects are History, American Literature, American History, Wars, Biographies, etc.

              If you already know what free book you want, you can find it without him, but his list brings up multiple choices that you have never heard of. You can just search the Amazon website under his name.

              If you do not have a kindle, you can download a Kindle program for your regular computer, and it will sync with your account and you can use books and music just like you do have a Kindle.

              Squeeky Fromm
              Girl Reporter

              1. Squeeky – my wife got me on to one called Bookbud that does kind of the same thing, except is for all formats. You just tell it the format and it will look for that type only. So far the cheapest has been 0,99 but my wife has gotten several free fantasy books. That was not one of my genres. 😉

            3. I own and have enjoyed many of the movies of many of the great comics of yesteryear, including Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers, and the Stooges, and I’m something of an expert on them. My tastes in entertainment are eclectic, so I like them all. Although the Stooges humor can certainly be childish (as the Stooges are really children in the bodies of adults, doing what children would like to do if they could), I don’t consider the humor “cruel” because nobody is really hurt, regardless of what the sound effects and the initial response of the “victim” may imply. And, of course, the fun in the Stooges (like the Marx Brothers in their own ways) is the anarchy they bring to the “straight” adult world we inhabit. Here’s a good example of that:

              2. Ralph Adamo – I feel the same way about Chaplin that Blackadder does in Blackadder Goes Forth. His is also a humor of cruelty. The Stooges were great until I grew up (age 12 or so). Lloyd and Keaton are gods. I am hit and miss with the Marx Bros, regardless of how many there are. Still, Night at the Opera is a must see. 🙂

    5. Isaac….
      So far, President Trump is doing a “yeoman’s job”, and has made far fewer mistakes in his administration than his predecessor.
      Any difficulties he might encounter will be the fault of the previous administration and the Democrats determined to undermine him.
      In short, we’ll just recycle all of your excuses for the last administration.

      1. tnash – Trump is running a ‘scandal-free’ administration. I, for one, am delighted.

    6. issac – according to Rasmussen, Trump has a 56% approval rating. Forget the presstitude polls that were heavily weighted with Democrats.

    8. I’d like to hear Isaac explain how an outgoing president can have 60% approval ratings AT THE SAME TIME that more than two-thirds of the country believe we have been headed in the WRONG direction. How do you square that when Obama is the one who has been in the White House driving HIS agenda for 8 years? You can’t.

      He is a likeable guy and a smooth operator, but make no mistake, Obama has quietly done plenty of damage to the country, but because of his pals in the media and because of how he clamped down on the free press, we just don’t hear about it.

      Say what you want about Trump, but there is NO doubt that this man loves this country. After 8 years of Obama, there are a lot of people who still wonder what he really thinks about America That is just one big difference between these two men.

  13. Hardly “America’s 71st time that a democratically elected president has taken the oath of office” since the Electoral College didn’t do the job it was created for, and Democracy would otherwise require the one with the most votes (whom I also deplore) to have won. Call it ‘democracy’ if you want to, but it’s pure charade.

    1. Wrong, Claudia. The Electoral College did PRECISELY “the job it was created for.” The very purpose of the Electoral College is to ensure that no individual state (or small group of states) controls the outcome of an election. So, let’s say, for example, that if Californians chooses to allow a massive flood of illegal immigrants into their state and then allows them to register to vote, along with massive registrations of dead voters, California (and others like it) do not get to choose the next President by virtue of their own lawlessness and substantially larger voter rolls than other states.

      Of course, those inclined to the Left DO believe that lawlessness should trump the law, as long as the lawlessness benefits the Leftists. That is the very crux of the protests against Trump. For example, legendary interviewer Larry King attended the inauguration, and the Leftists smashed the windows of his car. King said the following in response on Twitter: “Protestors in DC smashed the windows of my hired SUV & many other cars,” King posted on Twitter. “I was working in-studio & am ok, but my driver is a bit rattled.”

      Leftists think that if you disagree with someone that you have the perfect right to cause bodily injury, damage property, etc., or even worse, as long as those actions are done for the Leftist cause.

      So, did any of JT’s family members engage in some violence and destruction of private property? I wouldn’t be surprised if they did, but JT isn’t saying, for obvious reasons, as he purports to be in favor of following the law.

      2. That is not fair. While black sheep can exist in any family, I highly doubt Professor Turley’s family are the sort of people to behave so poorly. He comes from good people.

    2. I take it the curios in the American constitution are not taught in British schools and you’re not averse to shooting your mouth off about them when you know nothing.

    3. Claudia, the Electoral College DID EXACTLY AS IT WAS DESIGNED TO DO. The unelected “elites” who cobbled the US Constitution on Philadelphia pt together a document by the elite… for the elite. For this group the idea of democracy was anathema. The plurality by which the Hildebeast beat the intellectually shallow,and morally and culturally bankrupt Trumpster consisted almost entirely of the “yuge” plurality by which she won in California. Of the 30 states that Trump won, in 12 of these states the average IQ is less than 100. The average IQ in California is third from the bottom just above Mississippi and Louisiana.
      Following this election was about as intellectually stimulating as watching a settling pond overflow at a slaughter house or an out of control fire at a large used tire dump.

  15. Please remind Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Donna Brazile that things could have been different if they had just let Bernie take the lead.

    The Democrats and the media(MSNBC) have no one to blame except their own leaders.

    1. Bernie lost the popular vote in the Democratic caucuses and primaries and lost the nomination because HRC was able to roll up 3-1 majorities among Southern blacks. Nothing Brazile or Schultz did generated that.

  16. JT says “[w]hile my brother and family from Chicago went to the Mall to protest . . .” but he does not explain what they were protesting.

    Was his family upset that Americans elected the President of THEIR choice, fully in accordance with the laws, rather than one selected FOR them by the Elite Establishment and the Media Pressitutes that operate in the Elite Establishment’s service?

    Were they protesting that Obama did not impose martial law on America to prevent the will of the American people from being carried out?

    Were they protesting that someone did not step forward to assassinate the President-elect as Media Presstitute CNN had hoped would happen so that Obama could appoint the next president?

    Just what were they protesting?

    1. I think it’s kinda like those who are leaving the blog “I didn’t get my way so I’m taking my ball and going home”?

  17. God Bless our President, the men and woman of all the services, those Americans who have sacrificed their lives and health in battle and may our Constitution live forever.

  18. Indy Bob, I saw Bubba drooling and Hildabeast giving Bubba “the look.”

    1. What was it Squeeky, you are always on the money can you re-phrase and re-submit? I’m sure we will understand your drift.

      1. Thank you!!! I will try:

        True. . . but what does that have to do with “block traffic, block streets, threaten people, taunt police, throw things at them, get rowdy, burn flags, etc. . . ” What does “peaceably assembling and petitioning for redress” have to do with:

        [imagine here a picture of a poor Trump supporter with a bloody head. The pic is also at the link below, along with the the Pyrobrat.]

        Here is a link to more, and the videos:

        http://www.dailywire.com/news/12603/violent-anti-trump-protest-videos-child-brags-amanda-prestigiacomo

        Like I said, I think we have stretched the right to “peaceably assemble” to include various forms of rioting, mayhem and street violence under the guise of “protest.”

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

  20. I noticed Bill Clinton casting gaze at Mrs. Trump. And he was probably thinking, wow does she have a sister?

    1. Sorry, I can’t resist this. I know it is tacky and probably tasteless, maybe even gutter humor, but here it goes: Bill was not thinking WOW! Does she have a sister. He was more likely thinking WOW! Does she have a daughter.

    2. She was probably looking at Clinton thinking help I hope someone rescues me. Bill can dance. lol One does have to fill a bit sorry for. her.

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