Opinion: The Day Musk and Vance Became Our Only Guardrails on Trump
In his benediction at Monday’s inauguration, Rev. Lorenzo Sewell called it a “miracle millimeter.”
The Detroit cleric was speaking of the quarter-inch that made the difference between a grazed right ear and a fatal head wound when 20-year-old Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump nine months ago. Trump had proven himself a genius showman when he rose from a protective pile of Secret Service agents, blood trickling down his face, with a clenched fist raised and an oversized American flag in the background.
“Fight! Fight! Fight!!” he cried.
The power of the image was undeniable, and the ultimate result was Trump taking the oath of office as the 47th President of the United States.
“Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear,” Trump said in his inaugural address. “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.”
He may have convinced himself that he was returning to the White House on a divine mission. His speech was more tempered than usual, even as it touched on many of the issues he campaigned on. And he spoke more of the future than he had before he had come so close to a violent end.
“The future is ours and our golden age has just begun,” he said.
But the restrained tone and the orientation to the future also may have been due to the influence of Vice-President JD Vance and Elon Musk, the “first buddy.” They are both said to have urged moderation.
Musk is the biggest in terms of both money and influence of the half-dozen multibillionaires who had come to support him since that transformative post-shooting image made it more socially acceptable. They were all seated with Musk in front of Trump’s Cabinet picks, whose main qualification seems to be blind devotion to Trump.
The sight of Musk in a more prominent seat than the likes of secretary of defense nominee Pete Hegseth accorded some hope that the billionaires will serve at least occasionally as guardrails in the absence of such sensible first-time advisers as John Kelly, one of Trump’s former chiefs of staff.
The inaugural address as read by Trump from teleprompters ended without any lines likely to resonate through history, and constituted a perpetual affront for having been uttered on what was also Rev. Martin Luther King Day.
The benediction by Sewell—who had received considerable attention when Trump visited his church in June as part of an effort to court the Black vote—channeled the slain civil rights leader who had not been blessed by a miracle millimeter. Sewell spoke of judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
“Free at last!” he cried out. “Let freedom ring!”
A seemingly moderated Trump then went downstairs to address an overflow crowd in Emancipation Hall, which is dedicated to the slaves who helped build the Capitol. He gave what he called “a better speech” without teleprompters and the tempering influence of Musk and Vance.
The Trump we all know repeated yet again the shameless lie about the 2020 election that had prompted a mob to storm the building, leaving more than 140 police officers injured.
“By the way, that election was totally rigged,” Trump said. “It was a rigged election.”
At a subsequent event in the Capital One Arena, Trump said he would be pardoning supporters who were imprisoned after they stormed the Capitol four years ago seeking to prevent a peaceful transfer of power—the same process that made him president again on Monday.
He seemed to see nothing untoward in calling them “the Jan. 6 hostages” even as he stood with the families of several Israeli hostages.
Trump then proceeded to the White House, where he signed a full pardon and six commutations for more than 1,500 Jan. 6 prisoners. He affixed his name with a Sharpie and handed it to an aide, telling him to get right on it, so the prisoners could be promptly released.
“Yes, sir,” the aide said.
Trump proceeded to sign other orders as he spoke with a group of reporters who had been admitted to the Oval Office.
He looked back on his big day.
“I got great reviews on that speech,” he said of his tempered inaugural address.
The aide handed him another order to sign.
“Withdrawal from the World Health Organization,” the aide said.
“O-o-o, that’s a big one,” Trump said.
We go on into the future, with only Musk and Vance to stand as guardrails.
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