There are various reasons for hope, and various reasons for concern, with regard to the administration being inaugurated today.
It’s remarkable that a ceasefire broke out in Gaza over the weekend, apparently as a result of Biden- and Trump-sponsored negotiators playing good cop/bad cop. It’s reasonable to think that any peace that Trump's people negotiate in Ukraine will overtly favor Russia, though it's getting to the point there at which any peace is better than no peace. One inaugural worry concerns reproductive rights for women, but I think the site of these struggles has, as Trump insists, moved to the state level. I doubt we'll see much in the way of national legislation on abortion in the next four years. Trade wars are no doubt about to bloom; the economic effects will be multiple and ambiguous, and are underknown at this time.
As we gear up for Trump 2, lots of people appear concerned about the content of the inaugural address, which they worry will not to live up to Kennedy's in 1960 or Lincoln's in 1864. Beautiful speeches are indeed beautiful, but that would be the least of our concerns, because there are humans directly at stake, and the rhetoric and reality of Trump's proposed actions are directly despotic. Immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country," he has said. As a companion piece to the Republicans' newfound pro-natalism, associated with incoming vice president J.D. Vance, this looks like a eugenics program for racial nationalism.
Some of the first executive orders on this matter—expected very quickly, as indicated by incoming officials such as Stephen Miller—will likely seek to remove sanctuary city designations and change policies that keep federal agents from raiding churches which are sheltering immigrants. This will have ICE violating many passages of scripture, such as the one that declares that "the alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 19:34). I want to emphasize that last sentence, which directly indicates where the Bible asserts that legitimate power and sovereignty on these matters dwell.
As the crackdown proceeds, the independent and limited sovereignty of churches, schools, states, cities, and corporations will be lost and the power of the federal government, based on sheer military force, will pervade every corner and sphere more and more thoroughly. Federal agents raiding churches: think about that. The effect of a long-term immigration crackdown is centralization of all sorts of authority in the hands of the federal government, organized as a paramilitary force operating in all jurisdictions.
Apparently, the new administration had planned to begin in Chicago, but (in a hopeful development) that plan appears to have been leaked. They’re evidently rethinking, though it's very likely that they’ll be particularly focused on parts of the country controlled by Democrats. If it's not Chicago first, then perhaps multiple locations in California: Trump's latest attempt to drive Gavin Newsom insane.
But the sanity of any particular politician, and the political gamesmanship that so disgustingly blooms around the issue of immigration, are mere distractions. It's the directly human cost of what the Trump people are contemplating that makes the whole thing a betrayal of decency. When Trump, Miller, and "immigration czar" Tom Homan contemplate rapid deportation of millions of people, they contemplate raids all over this country; they contemplate internment camps housing tens of thousands of people; they contemplate destroying families and reducing millions of people to poverty and desperation; they contemplate returning millions of families to life-threatening conditions they fled in desperation. Today, contemplation becomes human destruction.
What they want is to harm people. I want to emphasize: persons like or such as you and me, things that count morally the same as Stephen Miller and Tom Homan. Their grounds are ethno-nationalist, motivated by relentless dehumanization, associating all immigrants with the worst criminals, with "disease" and blood "poison." They're beginning their fascist project today.
For the moment, other possible disasters being set off by today's inaugural seem relatively minor.
—Follow Crispin Sartwell on X and Bluesky: @CrispinSartwell