THE TRADITIONAL point of an inaugural address is to transcend the politics of the campaign and draw the country together. Donald Trump’s second inaugural was not that. But it stuck with tradition in other ways—it’s just that the traditions in question were much older.

The only one of his predecessors President Trump spent any discussing—other than excoriating the administration of the outgoing Joe Biden—was William McKinley, in his telling “a great president”, though he is not one many Americans would put in their pantheon. The reference came in a passage about restoring the 25th president’s name to Mount Denali, an idea that combines two Trump obsessions. America’s tallest mountain was officially given its koyukon (native Alaskan) name in 2015—which he considers a rewriting of history in deference to liberal sensibilities that is evidence of a woke mind virus. And the president who signed that change into law was Barack Obama, so reversing it undoes an Obama achievement too. But Mr Trump’s homage to McKinley, a fellow Republican, did not end there.

McKinley, who was inaugurated in 1897, presided over the negotiations that created the Panama Canal. He loved tariffs, both as a way to fund the government and to protect domestic industry. And he courted, and was courted by, robber barons of the Gilded Age.

President Trump has a thing about the Panama Canal. He thinks the terms of the treaty signing it over to its host country have been broken, and that it is controlled by China (it is not, though the Chinese government has gained influence in Panama). The single most attention-grabbing line in the speech, at least for those who are used to having an American president who respects other countries’ sovereignty, was: “we are taking it back.”

The treaty ceding the Panama canal was drawn up during Jimmy Carter’s presidency in 1977. Even back then this was opposed by conservatives as an unpatriotic betrayal by naive liberals, a perennial theme of Mr Trump’s (it is not just his taste in music that regularly defaults to the era of the Village People). To Panama, where the 82nd Airborne Division dropped in a decade later, when Mr Trump was in his 40s, this line sounds more menacing than many Americans realise.

So does the talk of territorial expansion, a theme no president has pursued seriously in over a century. The last president who increased America’s acreage substantially, as it happens, was William McKinley. Territories including Cuba, Hawaii and the Philippines were added to America in his first term, the latter as a consequence of a victory over Spain. “The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines,” McKinley said, “and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them.” America got bogged down fighting an insurrection there. For Mr Trump the point of territorial expansion is clear. (And extraterrestrial too—he thinks it is the country’s manifest destiny to plant its flag on Mars.) America must be “a growing nation” once again.

Back in the present day, America’s greatest foreign-policy challenges are managing the competition with China, conflict and instability in the Middle East and Russia’s occupation of Ukraine–not the fees paid by American warships to sail through the canal. But Mr Trump mentioned China only in the context of the canal. The Middle East made an appearance in a self-congratulatory passage about hostages. He did not mention Ukraine at all, except to allude to America providing “unlimited funding” to protect foreign borders while refusing to defend its own (claiming that “millions” of criminal migrants were crossing into the country). Even what he means by taking “back” the canal is uncertain. Would he actually settle for lower transit fees? Mr Trump has been president for four years, has been campaigning for the past four, has a reputation for blunt speaking—and on the biggest questions he is opaque.

The same applies to tariffs, where his worldview overlaps with McKinley’s. The 25th president signed the Dingley Act in 1897, which sent tariffs above 50%. In his first inaugural address McKinley said that this was to preserve the domestic market for American manufacturers, among other things. In an address to a joint session of Congress that he convened to pass tariffs, he presented them as a prudent act to fund the government without raising tax. Mr Trump thinks the same way. “We will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” he said. “It will be massive amounts of money pouring into our treasury, coming from foreign sources.” Here too, it is not yet clear what Mr Trump will actually do.

After McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist, that approach to protecting manufacturing became associated with the Democratic Party. The McKinley formula combined what is now seen as a left-leaning policy with a closeness to big business associated with the right. Mr Trump, like McKinley, brings them back together in his Republican Party. McKinley’s 1896 campaign received a $250,000 donation from J.P. Morgan and the same amount from Standard Oil (approaching $10m apiece in 2025 money). Mr Trump’s inauguration reserved prominent seats for Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, all of whom gave money to the inaugural committee. The president announced the arrival of a new “golden age”. But on tariffs, territorial expansion and a fixation with Panama what he seems to want is a return to the gilded one.■

THE MOST jarring difference between Donald Trump’s first and second inaugurations will be the setting. Eight years ago he spoke in front of the Capitol building on a relatively mild January day, but frigid temperatures have pushed the ceremony inside for the first time in 40 years. A closer look at plans for this scaled-back event also offers hints at some of the profound contrasts between 2017 and 2025.

Mr Trump’s vice-president will be sworn in first. Last time he had at his side the steady hand of Mike Pence, a living embodiment of the orthodoxies of Reagan Republicanism. Mr Pence had spent more than a decade in the House of Representatives before serving as governor of Indiana for four years. He knew the ways of Washington and was friendly with all of the party’s core constituencies: free marketeers, social conservatives and foreign-policy hawks. His choice was a sign of humility from Mr Trump meant to reassure his party after a hostile takeover.

His choice this time around sent the opposite message. J.D. Vance, 40-years-old, has half as much experience as Mr Trump as an elected official in Washington. He spent his brief time in the Senate challenging the foundations of Republican thought on international relations and economics. His elevation is a sign that Mr Trump is self-assured enough to not need a guide so much as an attack dog and loyal servant—something he believes Mr Pence was not in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

Others who will be present—or at least those invited before the guest list was radically reduced—are evidence of the great paradox of Mr Trump’s second term. While he is less constrained, he takes office with much of America and the world seemingly less anxious about him in power.

Mr Trump was something of an international oddity in 2016. Some, like the prime minister of Japan, swiftly adapted to the new reality and visited Mr Trump in New York. This time Mr Trump has a broader international fan base. Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, plans to attend, along with Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. The Chinese Communist Party will send the country’s vice-president, and India’s foreign minister will be there as well. Mr Trump had been conducting shadow foreign policy for weeks—with his advisers playing a role in the Gaza ceasefire—so it comes as no surprise to see such a broad guest list from abroad.

The American public’s reaction also has been starkly different. Rather than the palpable sense of dread apparent in January 2017, the streets are filled with tourists and there are parties taking place throughout the city. Organisers of an anti-Trump protest in Washington had hoped some 50,000 people might show up; around 5,000 did. Snoop Dogg, once a Trump critic, performed at the Crypto Ball (the president-elect, naturally, launched a new cryptocurrency the same day, called $TRUMP). The below-freezing temperatures should help to maintain this collective shrug from Mr Trump’s detractors. While the streets will probably be quiet, the rotunda, where Mr Trump will be sworn in, will be packed tight with America’s elite.

Mr Trump is at the peak of his power, before he has had to do anything unpopular, or disappoint any of the factions competing for his attention. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk—all open Trump critics during the first term—have struck friendlier notes and are set to attend the inauguration. Even Bill Gates recently said he was “impressed” with the new president. Towards the end of the campaign, Forbes estimated that Kamala Harris had support from 83 billionaires to Mr Trump’s 52. Since winning, many business titans have been more open. “Everybody wants to be my friend,” Mr Trump observed in December. No doubt he is aware that much of this is self-interest as his administration is set to write new regulations and retire old ones, all of which could directly affect profit margins.

Also in attendance will be Mike Johnson, the House speaker, and John Thune, the Senate majority leader. For all his rage against the deep state and his own advisers who he believed undermined him last time around, Mr Trump also had his fair share of scuffles with Congress. More deftly handling the politicians on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue will be as important for the Trump agenda as his war against the entrenched bureaucracy.

Here Mr Trump has made more effort in the run up to his second term. He personally intervened to ensure Mr Johnson remained speaker, and he has hosted various factions of Congress at Mar-a-Lago to talk strategy. Mr Trump is always unpredictable, but co-ordination has improved. For example, some executive actions may be delayed so that revenue savings can be passed by Congress and counted against revenue losses from tax-cut extensions. This may be the fate of Joe Biden’s ill-conceived executive order on student-loan bailouts.That does not mean the beginning of the new presidency will be quiet: expect a flurry of executive orders on immigration and trade right away.

Yet Mr Biden also issued plenty of executive orders on day one. Looking at them now–the reversal of the Muslim ban, the Covid-19 eviction moratorium, the whole-of-government initiative on racial equity–is like finding a time capsule buried in 2020. It is also a reminder that lasting change cannot be made by presidential fiat. To endure, policies need backing from Congress.

And while the Republican Party is very much outwardly MAGA—and agrees on cutting taxes, restricting immigration and bolstering energy production—many pre-Trump orthodoxies prevail. As he works with Congress, Mr Trump may find himself giving way to policies that don’t seem particularly revolutionary. “The striking thing about Republicans in Congress now is that they’re pretty recognisable” when compared to their Obama-era predecessors, argues Yuval Levin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, and alumnus of George W. Bush’s administration. “They haven’t changed as much as you would think, given how different Trump is from where Republicans have been before.”

The Senate will also play its traditional role of slowing down an ambitious president’s goals; it’s entirely possible that only Marco Rubio, nominee for secretary of state, will be approved on the first day of the Trump administration. Matt Gaetz, the controversial pick for attorney general, already saw his nomination collapse. Others could too, depending how they fare in their hearings.

Mr Trump will move rapidly; the question is whether his policy changes stick. The beginning of the end of the Trump era will kick off with large-scale deportations on Tuesday, once the inauguration festivities have come to a close. Once the initial shock and awe have worn off, it will be on Mr Trump to fight tougher battles of persuasion to create a real legacy.■