Hearts & Minds: Subdued and grandiose – Trump srides again

DONALD TRUMP knows how to communicate. He has an instinct for reaching people, for getting his message across. Often, they do not like what they hear but there is no avoiding it, such is his directness, repetition of key phrases and the accompanying belligerence. His speeches are rambling but they also hit home in the pivotal moments. Arguably, their very disjointed nature, frequently mixing the scripted with the impromptu and awkward, stilted gestures, gives them a homespun feel. He is not a natural orator. Instead, he deploys sheer force, throwing out thoughts, defying anyone to get in his path. Always they have a personal air. Understand he means what he says and he is talking from the heart.

So, it was with the inauguration address. Much of the performance, because that is what it was, had a familiar air, from his over-size clothes to his slumped shoulders and purposeful gait, the jut of his chin and forward stare, like a boxer doing the ring walk. His lips pucker when he does anger; a rictus grin and nod of the head is for humour. He tells it how he sees it.

Yesterday was no different. He was subdued as befits the significance of the occasion, but he still laced the grandiose with bulldozing aggression. Standing in front of many of its most senior members, he unflinchingly decried the ‘radical and corrupt establishment’. Thanks to them, ‘pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.’ Not complete disrepair, but ‘seemingly’. He, Donald J Trump, will fix it. Having survived an assassin’s bullet, he ‘was saved by God to make America great again.’ In the rollcall of greatness, he’s above them all. ‘Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history.’ He favours alliteration, succeeding a government ‘stumbling into a continuing catalogue of catastrophic events abroad.’ He invoked the historic Republican mantra of ‘manifest destiny’, drawing on an expansionist past while proclaiming an expansionist future.

As ever, it paid to spot what was unsaid and downplayed. His desire to take Greenland was not mentioned. Significantly, for the overseas business audience, tariffs received scant attention. Similarly, healthcare and cutting government spending were skirted over. Possibly, he knows tackling them is not as easy as previously billed. True to form, some of his claims were palpably false. Many of those he was addressing do not know or mind; the others don’t count.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.