Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Part I

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The Peaceful Transfer of Power and a New President in the White House: President Trump’s Historic Inauguration Day

Donald Trump yesterday became the 47th President of the United States. He began his second term, and of course, it began with all the formality of the inaugural ceremonies for an American president, except, of course, this year, the ceremonies were moved inside the Capitol Rotunda simply because of prohibitive cold outside. 

And inside the Capitol, there were some very interesting ceremonial scenes. There were also some very awkward political scenes. In terms of the awkwardness, you had people from both sides of America’s political divide sitting in very close proximity. And furthermore, you had an official inaugural committee made up about Democrats and Republicans, and there was a sense of forced formality and forced intimacy, at least forced or feigned friendliness in the entire affair. But that’s not entirely wrong. In other words, that’s not the worst thing that can happen in a constitutional republic.

The formality of this kind of ceremony greatly assists the peaceful transfer of power. It is, of course, very awkward, and there were awkward scenes at so many points in the ceremony. For one thing, this was not a transfer of power between just two presidents, but between two parties, and not just between two parties, but between deeply antagonistic rivals. And not just that, but the Vice President of the United States was the candidate of the opposing party, and of course, President Trump as candidate said a good many incredibly critical things about Kamala Harris as vice president and about her presidential candidacy.

When it comes to former President Biden, when he was on the stage entering the room as President Biden, everyone knew that he was passing from the scene in a political sense. He knew that. He regretted that in some sense, even in terms of his own comments coming from, also, his own family. He resents that, but he had to sit there when President Trump began by declaring it was an entirely new era.

Now, if anyone thinks President Trump was out of line in drawing that distinction between the past and the future, the distinction between the Biden administration and the policies he rejected, and the new way he was pointing forward, just remember the fact that this has happened over and over again. It happened perhaps most glaringly in recent political history when Barack Obama was inaugurated and with the then immediately former President George W. Bush sitting right there, Obama went on the attack, drawing the distinction between what he saw as the failed policies of the Bush years and the glories in his view of his own policies to come. In other words, this is not unprecedented. This has happened over and over again.

It is awkward, but it is peaceful, and that’s the most important thing. There is a peaceful transfer of power. President Biden, now former President Biden, entered that room President of the United States. He left a former president, and the distinction is made so clear because the new president goes on to festivities, a formal luncheon in Statuary Hall, all the rest. All the attention is on him. A parade is about to happen. All the cameras are pointed to him. Meanwhile, former President Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden, they got on a helicopter, and they flew away, but it was simply a special executive flight. It was no longer even referred to as Marine One. There is no sign of that kind of transition more poignant than the man who had been President of the United States just hours before flying away on a helicopter, and then all of a sudden, the cameras shift elsewhere.

Meanwhile, going back to the inauguration, President Trump, after taking the oath of office, went on to deliver his inaugural address. Now, in his first inaugural address, he presented a rather dark picture of America. He talked about American carnage. Very different tone in terms of this inaugural address, and the President had indicated it would be a different tone. Nonetheless, there were many interesting comments and indeed provocative comments made in the course of his inaugural address. He began by saying, and once again, this is to establish what he saw as a reset, “Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. Our safety will be restored. The scales of justice will be rebalanced. The vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end.”

So you don’t have to have a degree in political science to understand what that’s all referring to, and it was very clear that President Trump was in the presence of former President Biden making very clear the fact that he understood that what he had won was a political battle. He wasn’t just playing a political game. Also, in his inaugural address, which by the way was only about 30 minutes, which for Donald Trump is a rather short address, very similar length in his first inaugural address back in January of 2017, but this time, after talking about some general themes, President Trump got right into some of the policies he talked about on the campaign trail.

He talked about all the executive orders he was going to sign. He even talked about changing the designation of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. He talked about renaming a major mountain in Alaska back to its former name, Mount McKinley, named after, of course, the former President of the United States, William McKinley. He also went at other issues including the Panama Canal. No big surprise there. 

What does make President Trump’s second inaugural address somewhat interesting in this respect is the fact that he went after many of these most controversial policies. And in general, when you have political campaign speeches, even the kind of rally speeches that President Trump has been holding, when you get to the presidential inaugural ceremony, you take a different tone. But President Trump, even though he did strike a somewhat different tone, went right at the very same issues.

And just in terms of the theater of the event, it was very interesting that given the setup of the inaugural ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, the camera was on the former president and the former vice president sitting behind President Trump as he gave the address. And you noted very clearly that many times, when the crowd stood giving a standing ovation of approval to one of President Trump’s points, President Biden, that is to say, now former President Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris sat seated with a faint smile just present on their faces.

In the course of the day yesterday, and there were so many events related to the inauguration, officials close to President Trump had announced that about 80 executive orders or administrative policies put in place by President Joe Biden would be reversed by President Donald Trump, and it’s not just the reversal of those policies. President Trump went forward on several of the executive orders he had indicated. This included some issues related to immigration, DEI programs, you could pretty much go down the list, and many of these will have to be backed up with further action. But President Trump understands something very important, and that is that voters expect action after promises, and President Trump made so many promises on the campaign trail, the flurry of executive orders was intended on day one to show activity, but the long-term test of a president and of a presidential administration is how many of those policies last, and that’s going to be the big contest going into the future.

I have to say, I was particularly interested that President Trump offered these words, “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.” He went on to say, “We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.” He then said this, “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”

Now, that’s an astounding statement just in an historical context. If you look at previous presidential inaugurations, it would’ve been insane to think that any president even needed to say that. It wasn’t a contested issue. But of course, these days, it is a contested issue, and at least in terms of the language that President Trump used in his address, it means that his administration intends to recognize no “non-binary” category for gender. The categories will be male and female. But as you might be thinking immediately, that can still lead to very un-clarified situations because after all, much of the transgender movement wants to claim that a male can be a female, and so the fact that you have to check off one box or the other doesn’t settle the issue, unless it is tagged to sex at birth, and this is what’s interesting.

In offering an objective definition, I’m very thankful for this, an objective definition of male and female in terms of categories, the Trump administration has moved to define male as a human being with sperm and a female as a human being with eggs. And so that’s a pretty concrete way of understanding the situation, and at this point, pointing to the gametes is at least one way of both clarifying and simplifying the issue. Enough said.

In response to the President’s declaration, Kelly Robinson, President of the LGBTQ organization the Human Rights Campaign, said, “We are not going anywhere, and we will fight back against these harmful provisions with everything we’ve got.” Now, of course, much of this will head not only into some administrative process, it will head into the courts. Everyone understands that, but I’m very thankful that the President of the United States has clarified that issue in terms of his own policy and under his presidency, the policy of the United States.

And furthermore, I’m thankful that given the expertise that has been gained by many who are in the second Trump administration, they pretty much know how to get to definitional issues, and that’s going to turn out to be really important in defending these policies.

Part II

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Comparing the 45th and 47th Presidents of the United States: What’s the Distinction between Donald Trump Now Versus His First Administration?

The presidential inauguration yesterday was a turning point in history, and you can say that about every inaugural ceremony, but there’s a sense in which it was particularly clear, and particularly apt with the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States. Let’s make a comparison not just between, say, President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump. That’s too easy. Let’s make a distinction between President Donald Trump, the 45th President to the United States, and President Donald Trump, the 47th President of the United States. What’s the distinction?

The distinction I want to point to is one that is conceded by senior officials in his administration and even by President Trump himself. When he entered office in 2017, he really didn’t understand the power of the presidency. He didn’t understand the way the administrative state works. He didn’t understand how difficult it was going to be to bring about lasting change in Washington. He didn’t even have a team to put together. He had to assemble his team. He was behind in terms of the schedule. There were other issues of complexity as well, but the bottom line is that the President Trump who took the oath of office yesterday is vastly more experienced than the President Trump of 2017.

He enters into the office with at least much of a senior team already assembled. He entered into office with a set of immediate executive orders and not a small set, a very big set. He enters into office with very specific plans and with a lot of political momentum. Furthermore, to understand Donald Trump is to know that he is a man of exaggerated arguments and extravagant language, and that his political aims are the disruption of the administrative state. He wants to rewrite the international order. He wants to reduce the scope, and the scale, and the cost of government, and he wants a direct confrontation with Progressivist ideology.

He sees himself as a direct refutation of the progressivist ideology of the Democratic Party, but he also sees himself as the rejection of the elitist and condescending former leadership of the Republican Party. In his view, there isn’t that much distinction between a Bush or a Clinton. He intends to make a very clear distinction. The challenge for President Trump is going to be twofold. 

He’s going to need to put together a team, he’s going to need to bring about lasting change if he is going to be seen as the leader of a movement rather than just a leader of a brand. 

He is also going to have to have a successor, and that’s because a single individual can serve only two terms as President of the United States. That means that Donald Trump cannot succeed himself in office after the 2028 election. If there’s going to be lasting change brought about by a Donald Trump revolution, it’s going to have to come with a successor who takes office immediately as he leaves office.

I’m hoping for a good deal from the Trump administration. I’m hoping for an affirmation of objective truth as well as a rejection of leftist ideologies. I want more from President Trump when it comes to the sanctity of human life. At the same time, I am extremely thankful for his candor in rejecting the nonsense of the transgender revolution. He needs to go further. If we’re going to talk about objective truth, then we’re going to have to go deeper than merely rejecting the transgender revolution. We’re going to have to get to the objective reality behind male and female.

And furthermore, we’re going to have to have, at some point, a direct confrontation with the giant sexual revolution and the turn to personal autonomy that has so redefined our entire civilization. That is more than any of us can expect of one president in one administration even with two terms, but much progress can be made. That’s why President Trump has to make progress in this direction and why he must be followed by a successor of the same convictions with the same convictions with the same aims.

But at the very least, after yesterday, everyone recognizes Donald Trump is the President of the United States, and that represents more than a change of personality and party in the Oval Office. It means the promise or the threat of a political revolution. Time will tell if President Trump is victorious in bringing about the successful accomplishment of his political aims. But at the same time, the fact that, for instance, at the second inauguration, you had an entire row of Silicon Valley executives lined up, now, his supporters, after having been, just a matter of years ago, his opponents, that tells you that at least many in this culture, including some in very powerful positions in, say, Silicon Valley industry, they recognize that something more fundamental than Donald Trump is at stake here. Needless to say, it’s going to be a very interesting four years, and we’ll take it day by day.

Part III

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Joe Biden’s Last Minute Pardons: Biden Adds Fuel to the Investigative Fire with Controversial Preemptive Pardons

As I said, the very clear importance of a presidential transition is that one president leaves and another takes his place. But even as President Biden is now former President Biden, there are at least two issues that we have to revisit. One of these because it only happened overnight before Inauguration Day, and that was the fact that President Biden on his way out issued pardons to more members of his own family along with some political figures such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and retired US General Mark Milley. Interestingly, he also issued preemptive pardons for the entire membership of the House January 6th committee and at least some senior staff.

And of course, what this means is that these preemptive pardons have been issued by an outgoing president even in the absence of any kind of criminal investigation against these individuals, but simply because of what President Biden claimed was the threat of such an investigation. President Biden said in a statement, “Our nation relies on dedicated selfless public servants every day. They’re the lifeblood of our democracy. Yet, alarmingly, public servants have been subjected to ongoing threats and intimidation for faithfully discharging their duties.”

Now, that’s really rich coming from Joe Biden because Joe Biden has been very much a part of the lawfare of the last several years. Furthermore, as I mentioned already, when it comes to members of the Biden family, not just Hunter Biden, whom President Biden had pardoned inexcusably a matter of weeks ago, but other members of his family, as I said, there are very legitimate reasons for investigations into corruption by members of the Biden family during the time that Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States under Barack Obama.

And that’s because it was not just Biden’s son, Hunter, but his brother and others who are suspected of, I’ll say, being involved in very interesting business relationships in places such as Ukraine where there was no particular business expertise. The only explanation is the fact that there was influence with the Obama administration through Vice President Joe Biden. And as I say, this is very well-documented. You can look at major media and understand the background here. It’s very telling that it’s not just his son that Joe Biden would pardon, but also other members of his family.

Preemptive pardons, as I say, are pardons before the filing of any criminal charges or even in these cases, even a formal investigation, but I will simply offer this prediction. This will not stop congressional committees from investigating these matters. If anything, it may add fuel to the fire. Even if criminal charges cannot be brought, an investigative report can be revealed. It’s going to be very, very interesting. But once again, it tells you that in politics, if you’re not careful, a presidential administration can begin to act something like a mafia family. And as hard as that is to say, it turns out to be at least true in terms of some emerging patterns. And by the way, that could happen with either party. But the urgency right now is talking about the outgoing administration, or to put it another way, on his way out, as if we didn’t know, Joe Biden showed us exactly who he is.

Part IV

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Joe Biden’s Last Ditch Attempt at a Constitutional Revolution: No, the Equal Rights Amendment Has Not Been Ratified

The other big issue related to Joe Biden we need to discuss is the fact that in the weekend prior to the inauguration, he dropped this. His statement was, “In keeping with my oath and duty to the Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified. The 28th Amendment is the law of the land guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.” What in the world is going on there?

Well, less than meets the eye. There is no 28th Amendment to the US Constitution. The ERA or Equal Rights Amendment is not ratified, and it is not a part of the US Constitution. The archivist of the United States appointed by Joe Biden made that very clear. So what was the purpose? Well, it was serving the cause of liberal Democrats, especially some in the Senate, and liberal legal scholars, particularly in some very powerful law schools, and groups such as the American Constitutional Association, who have been arguing that the president has the power simply to declare the 28th Amendment ratified and thus, inserted in the US Constitution. And that’s because at this point, three quarters of the States have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment that is traced all the way back to the 1920s, by the way, and the last was the state of Virginia in 2020. So why isn’t President Biden right? Why isn’t it a done deal?

Well, that’s the longer story. The longer story is that the Equal Rights Amendment was proposed by the United States Congress, and it was adopted by Congress. It was forwarded to the States, and it was given with a time limit. In the early 1970s, Congress passed the legislation and drew a deadline at 1979 for a sufficient three quarters of the states, that’s 38 states, to ratify the ERA. Had three quarters of the states by 1979 done so, the ERA would’ve been in the Constitution by 1980. It didn’t happen. As a matter of fact, three quarters of the states had not been achieved even by 1979. So they extended the limitation to 1982, and the amendment failed to gain the three quarters of the states even by 1982.

And then you say, “Well, what about Virginia ratifying it in 2020?” Well, that was just cosmetic. It was just for show. And yes, if Virginia is counted as the 38th state, it will count. The reality is, however, nothing has counted since 1982. It’s also important to recognize that there were some states who ratified late. There were other states that ratified the ERA, and then rescinded their ratification. That’s not acknowledged by this group either. You look at it now, it is a complete constitutional mess. The one thing that is certain is that the Equal Rights Amendment is not ratified as the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution, and Joe Biden’s own archivist of the United States is refusing to go along with his argument. That’s very telling.

But what’s also telling is the fact that this is really about momentum, and here’s where we need to watch this very carefully. The main text of the Equal Rights Amendment stated this, “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Now, here’s the thing. If you look at that, you could say, “Well, yes, men and women should be equal when it comes to the vote, so many other issues.” But this doesn’t give any qualification, whatsoever. The ERA was driven by the ideological and political Left, and by the way, by the feminist movement, which at that point, included a good many Republicans as well as Democrats. And the ERA was intended to erase the distinction between male and female in the Constitution and thus, under any jurisdiction subject to the US Constitution.

But almost immediately, there was a conservative understanding that this would lead, for instance, to the fact that if this is taken seriously, and men and women are to have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction, what about something like the draft? What about something like military service? Erasing all distinction between male and female? And of course, this was far before the non-binary and transgender revolution was even on the screen, but it is something that, at face value, looks like something easily accomplished. But when you look at it more closely, you recognize this is an actual revolution that is simply summarized in a matter of a few words to be inserted into the US Constitution.

That’s why the Equal Rights Amendment movement is what, at least in part, led to the development of the conservative movement in the United States in the 1970s. And it’s because so many conservatives, and that includes conservative Christians, were awakened to the danger of the sexual revolution and to the kind of constitutional revolution that people were trying to bring about. Those who are pushing it now are openly saying that it will serve the cause of the LGBTQ revolution, and just imagine that kind of language about men and women in a world in which increasingly, the ideological Left wants to say a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man. You can clearly see that that kind of amendment, if it were to be inserted in the Constitution, could be contorted to serve that kind of revolution in a way that would sweep through the entire society. And honestly, that’s the agenda.

The point I want to make here is that going out of office, Joe Biden simply served the cause of these ideologues by saying, “Yes, as president, I’m just going to declare the ERA has been ratified.” But that’s not really the role of a President of the United States, and that’s why those words are likely to have no constitutional effect. But I can tell you what will happen. The Left is going to go to court over this, and there will be an argument made in federal courts, and there may be very liberal judges in some federal district courts or even some courts of appeal that may decide they want to try to push this kind of agenda through by declaring this argument to have some validity.

That’s not likely to hold up. Certainly, it’s not likely to hold up in the US Supreme Court. But as Christians understand, a great deal of mischief can be made in the years it takes to get this kind of issue from lower courts to the nation’s highest court. We also have to recognize that as Christians, we do understand there are clear distinctions between men and women. It’s not a distinction in human dignity, but there is a distinction, at least some distinction that must come with the force of law and with the force of constitutional respect. Otherwise, the very categories of male and female, girl and boy, husband and wife become entirely meaningless. And thus, this actually takes us back to the statement made by President Trump and his inaugural address that the two categories of gender or sex in the federal government are going to be male and female. The astounding thing is not just that he said it. The astounding thing is that he had to say it.

Here’s the thing about President Biden. If he really believed what he said, he wouldn’t have waited until the closing hours of his administration to say it. He could have said it in the early hours of his administration and spent the next four years trying to make his argument in public and in court. He didn’t have the courage to do that. There’s a profound lack of courage in simply shooting off this kind of statement on his way out. And perhaps, in that light, the most important part of the sentence is “on his way out.” He’s out, but the challenge will still remain.