Donald Trump Inaugural Address MST

Well, THAT just happened! A line-by-line breakdown.

While President Donald Trump gave his Inaugural address, I sat in the most unhappy Barnes and Nobles cafe. Every face was frowning, and laughing earned me hard stares—unfortunately, I was helpless to it. After months of suspense brewing, the orange clown’s ridiculous speech proved what I already knew: he is a poor joke.

Now, in the style of the old Internet, I wanted to provide some snarky line-by-line commentary. We used to call this “MSTing.”

You can read the full transcript provided by the New York Times here.

Ellipses indicate omitted text.

Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very, very much. Vice President Vance. Speaker Johnson. Senator Thune. Chief Justice Roberts. Justices of the United States Supreme Court.

Nah, fuck them.

President Clinton, President Bush, President Obama, President Biden, Vice President Harris.

They’re cool.

And my fellow citizens.

Jury’s out on those fuckers.

The golden age of America begins right now.

The new “Gilded Age,” you mean.

… Our sovereignty will be reclaimed.

A nation’s sovereignty is defined as its ability to govern itself. Nobody sane has the impression that the United States is within the command of another country or organization. It is strange to hear a president say so—did he make some sneaky deal we need to know about?

… The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.

“Vicious, violent, and unfair,” he says in self-pity, but Mr. Trump surely knows he had it coming. How could any federal agent resist investigating an insurrectionist who stole a truckload of classified documents and locked them in a country club bathroom? Unbelievable. The same as any drug dealer on COPS claiming his pants are not his own, no different from a sovereign citizen who cries that his rights are under attack when he is caught driving drunk with a gun.

As we gather today our government confronts a crisis of trust.

Blame falls mostly on this wretch for telling an average of twenty-one lies per day (30,573 total) from January 20, 2017, to that date in 2021.

For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment

If words have meaning, by definition an “establishment” of “many years” cannot be “radical,” as “radical” refers to fundamental and thorough change. As to corruption, well, this motherfucker launched a cryptocurrency scam on the eve of the transfer of power.

How do I know the $TRUMP, $BARRON, and $MELANIA crypto are scams? Mr. Trump said so. ("Bitcoin, it just seems like a scam.”) I recoil at any lecture on “corruption” from a man who had his businesses repeatedly dinged for fraud.

… the pillars of our society lay broken and seemingly in complete disrepair.

How he must hate America if this is what he sees.

We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home, while at the same time stumbling into a continuing catalog of catastrophic events abroad.

I am uncomfortable with this opportunistic and unfair denigration of America’s police, firefighters, and emergency aid workers. Challenges, like Hurricane Helane or the L.A. wildfires, are meant to be challenging. Still, our first responders have sacrificed too much to deserve this insult.

It fails to protect our magnificent law-abiding American citizens, but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world.

CNN: Trump’s own campaign can’t find proof for his ‘mental institutions’ immigration story

Our country can no longer give basic services in times of emergency, as recently shown by the wonderful people of North Carolina. Been treated so badly. And other states who are still suffering from a hurricane that took place many months ago.

NBC News: New probe confirms Trump officials blocked Puerto Rico from receiving hurricane aid

Or more recently, Los Angeles, where we are watching fires still tragically burn. From weeks ago, without even a token of defense,

Once again: needlessly insulting to the brave men and women fighting those fires while he was doing the YMCA with the Village People. Not even a token? Really?

… We have a public health system that does not deliver in times of disaster, yet more money is spent on it than any country anywhere in the world.

Mr. “Concepts of a plan” should not talk about healthcare.

And we have an education system that teaches our children to be ashamed of themselves in many cases, to hate our country despite the love that we try so desperately to provide to them. All of this will change starting today, and it will change very quickly.

Mr. Trump’s words are the ones brimming with shame and hate for the America that never failed to give him excess of his due.

My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place, and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom.

Concerning for an elected official (who promises to be a dictator on day one) declaring that we did not have democracy when they were elected. In which case, what put you in power?

From this moment on, America’s decline is over.

Mr. Trump’s cognitive decline, like his father’s, is only halfway through.

… Over the past eight years I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history.

More than any? More than Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, or even the late, great Ronald Reagan?

And I have learned a lot along the way. The journey to reclaim our Republic has not been an easy one, that I can tell you. Those who wish to stop our cause have tried to take my freedom, and indeed, to take my life.

Mr. Trump would have been convicted if not elected—and should still be convicted and incarcerated.

Thomas Crooks, the attempted assassin whose handiwork is a cow milked quite dry for campaign propaganda and t-shirt sales, was a registered Republican who dressed like Elmer Fudd and an anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant extremist who would have shot President Joe Biden, if their paths crossed first.

Just a few months ago, in that beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then, and believe even more so now, that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.

Personally, I blame Satan.

… For American citizens, Jan. 20, 2025, is Liberation Day.

Mr. Trump is a a sick man. Liberation Day is most typically a holiday in countries to mark the date of the withdrawal of an enemy regime or occupier. I am also reminded of: “We will be welcomed as liberators.”

… As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda, with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society: young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban, rural, and very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states, and the popular vote we won by millions of people.

Fundamentally untrue. Mr. Trump won 74,224,319 votes in 2020. In 2024, he won 77,303,568 votes. This is a modest rather than a dramatic increase, and the margins were slim. This is not a mandate.

To the Black and Hispanic communities, I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records and I will not forget it. I’ve heard your voices in the campaign and I look forward to working with you in the years to come.

I pray this is true. In the past, Mr. Trump denigrated Latino voters and was sued by the Department of Justice for his unknindness to the Black community. If he intends to keep an open door, listen to these communities, and take seriously their concerns, I have no snark.

Today is Martin Luther King Day and his honor, this will be a great honor. But in his honor we will strive together to make his dream a reality. We will make his dream come true.

Dear Reader, take a moment to read through Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech and evaluate whether or not it has any tonal similarities to this villainous bullshit.

National unity is now returning to America, and confidence and pride is soaring like never before. In everything we do, my administration will be inspired by a strong pursuit of excellence and unrelenting success. We will not forget our country, we will not forget our constitution, and we will not forget our God. Can’t do that.

“Strong pursuit of excellence,” he says, while nominating for his Cabinet: Russian asset and snake emoji Tulsi Gabbard, drunk adulterer Pete Hegseth, conspiracy theorist and whale-decapitator RFK Jr., spineless Little Marco Rubio, corrupt bimbo Pam Bondi, dog-killing Kristi Noem, snake oil salesman Dr. Mehmet Oz, the World Wrestling Federation’s Linda McMahon, Herschel Walker, who claims Dissociative Identity Disorder led him to hold his wife at gunpoint, and Mark Burnett, the inventor of reality TV.

Today I will sign a series of historic executive orders. With these actions we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense. It’s all about common sense.

When overconfident men say, “common sense,” they mean they want to act impulsively and according to what they imagine reality should be, not what study would show them.

First, I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came…. And I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.

Starting one’s reign with an emergency declaration seems a foreboding sign when you ought to be conscientious of the half the public that views you as a dictator.

Under the orders I signed today, we will also be designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Ah, so we are drone-striking the cocaine factories in the country right next door. Bringing the War on Terror to the southern border—well, fingers crossed it does not go as badly as it could, I wish whatever reckless actions he intends to take does not cause the deaths of innocent Mexicans or lead to radicalization and creation of actual terrorist organizations on the border.

And by invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gang criminal networks, bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities.

President Thomas Jefferson warned of this Act: “the friendless alien has indeed been selected as the safest subject of a first experiment; but the citizen will soon follow, or rather, has already followed, for already has a sedition act marked him as its prey: that these and successive acts of the same character, unless arrested at the threshold, necessarily drive these States into revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against republican government, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron: that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights.”

… Next I will direct all members of my cabinet to marshal the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices. The inflation crisis was caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices. That is why today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.

I prefer the actual Sarah Palin to this imitator—at the least, the pitbull did her lipstick better. Some specifics for these policies are in order; as-is, Mr. Trump is saying: “I will bring prices down by waiting for someone else to do it.”

America will be a manufacturing nation once again,

The United States economy has been steadily growing manufacturing. If Mr. Trump does not achieve this, he has done something wrong.

… We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it. With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal never passed. What the hell is he talking about? Did Mr. Musk lend the speechwriters some of his ketamine?

… I will immediately begin the overhaul of our trade system to protect American workers and families. Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens. For this purpose, we are establishing the External Revenue Service, to collect all tariffs, duties and revenues. It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury, coming from foreign sources.

I have difficulty imagining a Republican Congress, which presumably still has one or two free-market believers, would vote to create an extroverted twin for the IRS, but these are strange times. Voters, do not forget Mr. Trump explicitly promised money from his tariffs (rightly dubbed the “Trump Sales Tax” by the Harris campaign) would fund universal childcare.

I encourage the parents in this great nation, on the day tariffs go live, to write real, pen-and-paper letters to the White House demanding that childcare program immediately. You can reach them at:

President Donald J. Trump,
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW,
Washington, DC 20500

Mr. Trump’s promise to restrain inflation contradicts this tariff policy, which explicitly raises the prices of goods. Which should it be? High prices or free trade? Attention, Wal-Mart shoppers: going forward, you should expect those everyday low prices to more occasional and not so low.

The American dream will soon be back and thriving like never before. To restore competence and effectiveness to our federal government, my administration will establish the brand-new Department of Government Efficiency. (“DOGE”)

President Trump should be embarrassed he was tricked into naming the “government agency” after a fucking animal meme.

After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I will also sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.

Finally, it is good and legal to say “Donald Trump is a bitch” again! In this spirit of comity, the “free speech warrior” should drop his civil lawsuits against Ann Selzer, Bob Woodward, CBS, et cetera, which are aimed at chilling speech.

Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents, something I know something about.

Mr. Trump has made many, many threats of prosecution and his nominee for the Director of the FBI has published an enemies list.

We will not allow that to happen. It will not happen again. Under my leadership, we will restore fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.

Mr. Trump was arrested for crimes he committed. The justice system is only “unequal” in the sense he escaped consequences. Some Americans do experience injustice, but they are not billionaires or politicians. This crying and whining by the most powerful man in the nation disgraces the whole Republic.

And we are going to bring law and order back to our cities.

Crime rates have already declined. If Mr. Trump fails to accomplish this, then again, he will have done something wrong.

This week, I will also 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.

Looking at the goblins surrounding Mr. Trump, I doubt his eye for merit. I am also skeptical of his willingness to stop “social engineering… race and gender” when he follows this with:

As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.

What did our nonbinary pals do to deserve this singling out during an Inaugural address?

This week, I will reinstate any service members who were unjustly expelled from our military for objecting to the Covid vaccine mandate, with full back pay.

I have contracted COVID-19 at least twice. I cannot imagine widespread outbreaks on military bases would be good for readiness, and I tend to think deployed troops should be bolstered against this sort of disease so they are not bedridden somewhere dangerous. My understanding is that this is the logic that led to the mandate inside the military. I think most people would not object to the reinstatement of these soldiers, but characterizing it as an injustice, to me, really proves the lie to the notion that conservatives believe the military should prioritize readiness and efficacy above all other concerns. Decisions we disagree with can often still be rooted in sound logic, and even if they later prove to be less necessary, we should grant administrators some grace with how they choose to respond to a once-in-a-lifetime deadly global pandemic. To the extent that there is precedent, it has been in favor of vaccine mandates.

And I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty.

This is science fiction and delusion.

… My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be, a peacemaker and a unifier. I’m pleased to say that as of yesterday, one day before I assumed office, the hostages in the Middle East are coming back home to their families. Thank you.

“Peacemaker and unifier,” he says, after threatening Canada and Denmark for weeks.

… America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on Earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world.

Who does Mr. Trump believe has replaced us?

A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Stupid.

And we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs.

This is opposed by both Republican Senators from Alaska, where it has been known as Denali for centuries. It was only called Mt. McKinley for a short time.

… The United States — I mean, think of this — spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal. We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made. And Panama’s promise to us has been broken. The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated…. China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And we’re taking it back.

Here is to hoping the United States does not attempt to “take back” the Panama Canal with force.

… So as we liberate our nation, we will lead it to new heights of victory and success.

“Liberate” again. This kind of rhetoric can easily escalate into—Oh, he pardoned all of the January 6 insurrectionists, especially the ones who injured police. (Many members of his future Cabinet condemned those same rioters.) This is not just a poor choice of words.

… We will not be deterred. Together we will end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy and disease-free.

He cannot elaborate here because he has no plan for this except to wait for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to do it.

… And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars.

Manifest destiny is a concept generally associated with the United States expanding its borders westward, at the expense of anyone who had lived westward. This has an ominous undertone to me, although I suppose it might be fine as long as there is nobody already living on Mars. Still, I am not sure how Mr. Musk intends to both do his Mars thing with SpaceX and also run Doge, Starlink, Tesla, Neurolink, The Boring Company, and Twitter,

… Many people thought it was impossible for me to stage such a historic political comeback. But as you see today, here I am. The American people have spoken. I stand before you now as proof that you should never believe that something is impossible to do. In America, the impossible is what we do best.

What an aspirational story. Rich man stays rich, avoids consequences for his behavior, and becomes powerful. Will this buffoon never be grateful and shut up?

From New York to Los Angeles, from Philadelphia to Phoenix, from Chicago to Miami, from Houston to right here in Washington, D.C., our country was forged and built by the generations of patriots who gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom. They were farmers and soldiers, cowboys and factory workers, steel workers and coal miners, police officers and pioneers who pushed onward, marched forward and let no obstacle defeat their spirit or their pride….

From here on, the address is quite nice and I can brook no complaint. Closing on kitsch is always the safe move, and I am glad that, for once, his speechwriter thought to find some nice things to say about our country.

This was a better speech than American Carnage, no doubt, but it leaves little room for hope that this administration would be dialing back the lunacy or incompetence. I expected some “red meat,” but not an entire alternate reality. I am not so naïve to think that, on this day, Mr. Trump would finally and truly become worthy of the American presidency. I know better. But still, it pains me that the Capitol, once painted in shit and blood by the president’s worshippers, is sullied once again by this graceless wretch. He continues to offer this nation only chaos, division, and stupidity.

If they ever loved this country, the House and Senate Republicans, upon seeing this miserable display, would re-evaluate their strategy of obsequiousness—but I expect to be disappointed. Every man in that chamber understood Mr. Trump has been, is now, and forever will be an incompetent, racist narcissist, but they applauded anyway. Let them all be damned alongside him.