I was betting that President Trump would have opted for a 'healing' Inaugural Message. Boy was I wrong. It was the darkest most vindicate speech I ever heard by a United States President. It was reported that the speech belittled every President present that came to support the first time elective official. Why did it happen? Here is what I think:
In spite of President Obama's strong recommendation that Donald Trump learn how to grow a thick skin to field criticism, Trump has failed at it, and when he feels belittled, he reverts to attacking, I would guess he attacks because he is not confident of his intelligence to handle the situation. At least that is what behavior specialists say. I am told it drives him nuts that he lost the popular vote, by a lot, and the attendance for the protest rallies was said to be much larger than those for his Inauguration. Add to that his count was just in Washington, the protests were from all over the world. He is obviously a very angry man.
But since he is so sensitive about his Inauguration critics, he put out a bogus picture of himself personally writing the speech. There are many accounts that he is actually functionally illiterate. He apparently reads nothing. The speech sounded almost word for word from what we would get from Steve Bannon, Trump's Nationalist top adviser and a former media maven.
As smart as Bannon is in probably crafting such a bellicose message, he overlooks what I believe is an obvious fact. The world has changed and our enemies are more and better prepared to fight, and very differently. There are multiple terror groups after us all over the world. They are using conventional weapons like bombs and nukes, as well as a zillion forms of cyber war fare. I am told drones can now carry major war heads internationally. Allegedly many in the Trump Administration have made a lot of money getting close to our foe Russia, who has never been trustworthy. Parallels are being drawn in Washington of the Bannon message and a European Despot of 75 years ago. That old message of "My Way, Right or Wrong," didn't work in earlier conflicts, and is not likely to work today. This is time for a really smart and strategic thinker to work the complex world stage, not what appears to be a school yard bully with a weapon of tweets.
But, now it looks like Bannon has at least one convert in the White House.