By BRIAN PORTER | Rocky Mountain Voice
President Donald J. Trump set the tone Monday for the next four years with eight words: “The Golden Age of America begins right now.”
The 47th President of the United States focused on restoring American greatness during an inaugural address moved indoors for the first time since the beginning of President Ronald Reagan’s second term in 1985.
“From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world,” Mr. Trump said. “During every day of the Trump Administration, I will very simply put America first.”
He drew differences between the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden, seated to his left, and the restorative policies he will implement to bring a once proud nation back to one which is “prosperous and free”.
To do that, Mr. Trump said, he will sign 200 executive orders on Day 1, most of which will reverse the harmful, progressive policies of Mr. Biden.
“With this action, we will begin the restoration of America,” Mr. Trump said.
He first noted a series of executive orders aimed at sealing and securing America’s borders, such as the end of “catch and release” and the arrival of federal resources on the border, so, Mr. Trump says, local resources can return to patrolling their communities.
“All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin a process of returning people to countries from which they came,” Mr. Trump said.
He will sign orders designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, such as the infamous Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang which has victimized immigrants in Aurora, Colo., and other places. Additionally, he will implement a version of the Alien Act of 1798 — first suggested by Mr. Trump in Aurora — to fight the “devastating crime [being brought] to U.S. soil, including in cities and inner cities.”
“As commander-in-chief, I have no higher duty than to protect Americans,” he said.
It was one of several mentions of illegal aliens during his inauguration speech. He blamed failures of the government upon misplaced funding toward illegals.
“Our country can no longer deliver basic services in times of emergencies,” Mr. Trump said, referencing North Carolina hurricane victims. “More recently, there’s Los Angeles, where we are still watching fires burn.”
Restoration of energy dominance, including an all-of-the-above approach, will be another element of his first day orders.
“I will declare a national energy emergency,” Mr. Trump said. “We will drill, baby, drill. We will bring prices down, and fill up our strategic [oil] reserves again.”
As Mr. Biden’s anti-fossil fuel policies drove up prices at the pump, he depleted reserves built to capacity during Mr. Trump’s first administration.
“We will end the Green New Deal and end the electric vehicle mandate, saving the auto industry,” he said. “In other words, you will be able to buy the car of your choice.”
Mr. Trump also defended the value of tariff’s, which likely will also be included in what has been described as an omnibus of executive orders to be signed on his first day.
“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign countries, we will tax and tariff foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” he said.
He drew boisterous applause from the gallery of mostly lawmakers with mention of the new Department of Government Efficiency, and other policies such as a cease to censorship and restoration of free speech, elimination of government weaponization of which he claimed to have been a victim, restoring law and order in cities, and ending government-led social engineering.
“It will be the policy of the U.S. government that there are only two genders: male and female,” Mr. Trump said, a nod toward an anti-woke policy.
Also related to trade, on the Panama Canal, Mr. Trump pledged: “We’re taking it back. We didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama.”
Active duty military personnel in Colorado Springs and in other areas of the state and country likely appreciate his positions toward them, designed to remove obstacles.
“They will be free to focus on the sole mission, defeating America’s enemies,” Mr. Trump said. “We will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier.”
In a tip to recently-deceased President Jimmy Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech in 1979, President Trump concluded Mr. Biden leaves the country in a “crisis of trust” toward government.
“My recent election is a mandate to completely reverse this horrible betrayal,” Mr. Trump said, “to give the people back their wealth, their faith and their democracy. From this moment forward, America’s decline is over.”
He recalled an assassin’s bullet striking his ear in Butler, Penn., during a rally on Mr. Trump’s campaign.
“My life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to Make America Great Again,” he said to applause. “For American citizens, Jan. 20, 2025, is Liberation Day.”
That’s a prediction Mr. Trump first made in Aurora, Colo., before he was elected.
He won every supposed battleground state, noting the uncommon support of a Republican coming from Black and Hispanic populations. He also noted an inauguration on the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.
“In his honor, we will strive to make his dream a reality,” Mr. Trump promised. “We will make his dream come true.”
In another nod toward a Democrat, Mr. Trump pledged, “we will place the stars and stripes on the planet Mars,” not much differently than John F. Kennedy pledging, “we choose to go to the moon” during a 1962 speech in Texas. Kennedy had said, “we do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” The translation on Monday by Mr. Trump was: “Ambition is the lifeblood of a great nation.”
Coloradans listening to the speech, from Yuma to Grand Junction and from Fort Collins to Pueblo, might have related to one moment, when Mr. Trump referenced the once undiscovered frontier, a time when frontier scouts Kit Carson and Jim Bridger, and when Zebulon Pike, Stephen Long and John C. Frémont made their name in Colorado and broadened America.
“They crossed deserts and climbed mountains,” he said. “If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do, nothing we cannot achieve. You should never believe anything is impossible. In America, the impossible is what we do best.”
He pledged to lead an administration that would not forget the country, the constitution or God.
“We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in American history,” Trump said.