Do you not agree that a large portion of America’s military budget is spent abroad? All those soldiers stationed in Germany, Turkey, Britain, etc spending their wages locally?
Is that actually important? I’m not bothered about people being rich; I’m bothered about people being poor.
Bullshit.
That thing was nothing more than another campaign speech.
You’d almost think he isn’t sure if he truly won or not.
What do you call the last 8 years? Lots of ashes there.
I’ve been reading a lot of the responses and, as usual, the snowflakes are all bent out of shape because Trump came out and said we are going to fix America, as opposed to Obama who came out on his inaugural and said we’re going to screw up America. He sure tried and damn near succeeded.
And what was the first thing Trump did? He carried out a promise that he made to the American people and drove the first nail into the coffin of Obamacare.
Is everything black and white to you, or is it possible for decent and patriotic Americans to disagree on issues like these? I’ve never gotten the sense from you that you consider that some liberals might be thoughtful, honest, and decent, and just reach a different conclusion than you based on their experience… but I’m hoping that I’m wrong about that.
George Will, conservative commentator, called it the worst inauguration speech ever. Doris Kearns Goodwin, the presidential scholar, said it was a speech that only Trump supporters would like and recalled - probably through ignorance, IMHO - those who turned a blind eye to Nazism. Hugh Hewitt, conservative talk show host, called it unusually bleak.
These are not your typical SDMB liberal posters. Their opinions are worth taking seriously, even if you hold ad hominem views that criticism from others should be ignored.
The inauguration speech was a microcosm of the campaign: cherry-picking facts to prove the point you want to make.
The economy is vastly improved in the past 8 years…except for those traditional blue-collar sectors like mining and manufacturing. They’re a small minority but Trump spoke to them and got them to vote for him, and his speech was all about “shuttered factories like tombstones.”
Similarly, crime is down almost everywhere – so if you want to make a bleak law-and-order argument, point to Chicago.
Noted liberal media moguls Fox’s numbers weren’t terribly good.
The numbers aren’t terribly relevant, though.
I’ll never understand what was bad about the last 8 years. I thought they were great (especially financially for me) and a part of an America I want to be part of. Let’s see how the next 4 or 8 go. I don’t really feel I have reason for optimism, but I’m kind of an optimist by nature.
In other words, unchecked power from the White House is a good thing. Isn’t that what Obama had been accused of for 8 years? Acting like a dictator? I recall the term “overreach” being used by Republicans several times over.
It truly is okay if a Republican does it. But ONLY if a Republican does it.
The more I learn about history and repetition…“It’s not illegal if the President does it” will be the echo of this new administration.
(David Frye’s joke about Nixon also comes to mind)
Nixon at a canyon:
N: Hello!
Echo: Hello…hello…hello…
N: I am the president.
E: …The president…the president…the president…
N: I am the greatest president who ever lived.
E: (Silence)
N: Well?!
E: Sorry, I’m an echo, not an idiot…idiot…idiot…
I liked the part where Trump plagiarized several lines from one of Batman’s Super-villains.
Bane, if I do not err.
Google it. 
I’d still like to know why he thanked the world.
Thanking Putin directly would have been a bit too obvious.
“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag carrying the cross.” Attributed to Sinclair Lewis, and perhaps one or two others, IIRC.
I couldn’t bear to listen to his speech in real time, I’ll give it a shot online.
Best comment I’ve read so far:
Picture a remake of “The Thing With Two Heads”, with Trump in the Rosie Grier role and Putin in the Ray Milland role.
I have to admit, I side with slee on this one… why should I dumb down my speech, rather than use such confusion as a teachable moment? Some of this recreational outrage bullshit is partially responsible for the backlash that elected Trump. The offenderati really need to find real things to get all het up about, rather than assuming that the use of the word “niggardly” has some bigoted overtone.
To borrow from the much-missed Molly Ivins, I’m sure Trump’s inaugural speech sounded much better in the original German.
That should be, its original Russian.
Multiple translation steps…
We’ve got about 150,000 U.S. troops stationed abroad, divided nearly evenly between Europe, Japan, and the Middle East and Afghanistan.
My WAG is that the ones stationed in the Middle East probably aren’t spending much money off base. No drinking, no fraternizing with the local women, no fun.
And if the rest are spending $10,000 off base each year, that comes to, what, [Dr. Evil]ONE BILLION DOLLARS[/Dr. Evil] per year. Out of a nearly $20 trillion economy.
If there were no connection between the two, I’d agree that it wasn’t important. But I’ve said a number of times in recent years that despite being a small-d democrat, I could probably put up with government by the plutocrats if they’d only do a good job for everyone else while they took their chunk of the pie, plus a bit more.
But the fact is that if you concentrate a lot of money in a relatively few hands, you also concentrate a lot of power there, and while there are exceptions, the rich work really hard to keep the poor poor. There’s a reason that the GOP is against health care for everyone, against raising the minimum wage, against guaranteed overtime pay for middle-income people, against labor unions, etc., etc., and that’s because that’s the stances most of the rich people want the GOP to take. And the rich people largely call the tune.
Besides, the money that the rich hang onto really IS money that everyone else isn’t getting. And it’s an increasingly large chunk of the pie.
You have to hand it to him though, the part where he deregulated the banks and GM went bankrupt was genius!