NORTHAMPTON — In his inaugural address Friday, President Donald Trump invoked the familiar populist themes and repudiation of so-called Washington insiders that many say helped the real estate magnate pull off his stunning electoral victory.
“Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth,” Trump said during the address. “Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed.”
In the roughly 16-minute speech, which is unusually brief as far as inauguration addresses are concerned, Trump, at times, painted a bleak picture of the United States: “Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”
And then:
“This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
It was an address that critics and supporters alike say was characteristic of the candidate Trump was during the now infamously bitter and divisive election season.
Following inauguration pomp Friday afternoon, state and local lawmakers on Friday weighed in on the 45th president’s remarks.
U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, who protested the formal certification earlier this month of the presidential election, rebuked Trump’s remarks in a statement.
“I have the highest respect for the office of the presidency, but in all candor I don’t have an awful lot of respect for the man who took the oath of office today,” McGovern said. “These are challenging times no doubt but it is important that we not despair. I have hope. I have hope that we can get through this. I have hope that we can get through this because of the calls and notes and emails that I have received from so many of you urging me to fight and promising that you will fight alongside me.”
McGovern also said he, along with his wife and daughter, would be marching in the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday.
“I’m looking toward the future as an opportunity to be able to shape the direction that our country will move in and to do all we can to make this the country what we want it to be. I’m a dad and I want my kids to have a good future,” he said in the statement. “The stakes have never been higher. Let me remind you of the words of Barack Obama — ‘keep hope alive.’”
In an interview Friday, Francis G. Couvares, a professor of history and American studies at Amherst College, echoed McGovern’s sharp disapproval of Trump, but added he didn’t even bother watching the address because “there’s nothing new we’re going to hear with this,” he said. “I think it’s a dark time, but I don’t think it’s black …we have the capacity to resist, but we have to use it. If we don’t, we will lose it.”
On the other side of the aisle, state Sen. Don Humason, R-Westfield, in an interview with the Gazette, made the case for supporting the newly minted commander-in-chief.
“My big fear is that people didn’t watch it, and they will still say bad things about it,” Humason said. “My sense is that it was a reach across America, and it was (more so) a warning to enemies abroad than (it was) to people here in the United States who didn’t support him.”
Humason said now that Trump is in office, he hopes the president is given a fair shake by critics and opponents.
“I just hope they give him a fair chance,” he said. “What I don’t want to see are people constantly berading him because of who he is… I didn’t like President Obama’s policies, but I didn’t not like President Obama.”
Humason added:
“I like to think that, as Americans, we all want our president to do a good job for our country and for our position in the world.”
Michael Majchrowicz can be reached at mmajchrowicz@gazettenet.com.