Donald Trump’s reality, as told by Sean Spicer – and many others
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Our take
Editorials
Sacramento police on right path to restore public trust: The Sacramento Police Department now requires officers to get 40 hours of Crisis Intervention Training to deal with people in the midst of crisis. The next challenge will be finding a police chief who will be transparent, accountable and keep the community in mind after deadly shootings.
There’s a right way for Fortress California to hunker down: Saturday’s extraordinary protest marches notwithstanding, California greets President Donald Trump with a fresh eye and high hopes that he will soon earn the benefit of the doubt.
President Donald Trump delivered an inaugural address that will appeal to his core supporters with his brand of populism and patriotism. But he failed to reach out to those who didn’t vote for him, to try to unify America or inspire us to common purpose. That will make it more difficult for him to lead and govern.
Columns
Shawn Hubler: Defunding Planned Parenthood and throwing out Obamacare may appeal to red state voters. But in California, congressional Republicans could pay politically.
Dan Walters: California’s cap-and-trade system of reducing carbon emissions is highly controversial, and whether it survives or collapses depends on what happens on interlocking legal, political and bureaucratic battlegrounds.
Andrew Malcolm: President Donald Trump joins a super-elite group of presidents. Are there any patterns to these men who had never held elected office? Are there any instructive observations from their rise and their service in the White House?
Marcos Breton: The America in Trump’s inaugural address bares little resemblance to the country I know.
Gregory Favre: Donald Trump often focuses his contempt on the news media, and a senior Trump administration official called the press “the opposition party” and threatened to evict reporters from the White House press room.
Op-eds
John R. Russell IV: California has a choice. In Washington, after you get that dog for your true friend, nothing is more true than the old adage that you are either at the table or on the menu.
Rep. Doris Matsui: Born in a Japanese internment camp, Sacramento’s congresswoman worries that President Donald Trump and his supporters have wrongly rationalized radical policies aimed at Muslims by citing the internment of Japanese Americans. That anyone would cite internment as justification for discrimination today is appalling.
F. Noel Perry, Ethan Elkind and Betony Jones: A study that looked at our state’s carbon cap-and-trade program, renewable-energy policy and energy-efficiency programs reveals plenty of economic costs, but even greater economic benefits.
Mark Drolette: After fleeing to Costa Rica during the Bush administration and returning to California, this Sacramentan is wondering if the Calexit plan is a viable option with President Donald Trump in charge.
Their (mostly non-Trump) take
Orange County Register: Officials like to brag that California has had four consecutive balanced budgets – but only if you leave out some crucial details.
LA Times: California needs to do more than apologize to people it sterilized. Nowhere was eugenics more aggressively practiced than in California. If there are indeed 831 survivors, and each were to receive, say, $25,000, that would cost the state approximately $20 million – which wouldn’t bust the state’s budget.
Michael Fitzgerald, The (Stockton) Record: Trying to land Stockton a state university, Assemblywoman Susan Eggman last year directed state analysts to determine which city most deserved one. State analysts came back with their findings based on an unexpected way of measuring. By their yardstick, nobody deserves a new state university.
San Diego Union-Tribune: Donald Trump has just become the first president in 28 years to not nominate a Latino to his Cabinet. His 15 choices include 12 white men, one black man, one white woman and one Asian-American woman. In short, the new president’s Cabinet doesn’t look remotely like America.
Macon Telegraph: Sonny Perdue, who served the great state of Georgia as governor from 2003 to 2011, didn’t attain his knowledge of agriculture from sleeping in a Holiday Inn last night, rather, he was literally born into into the business.
Takes on the inauguration
Denver Post: Donald J. Trump struck a refreshing opening tone for his new responsibilities by pledging to put the American people front and center in every decision he makes. Trump began his first address in office talking about the transfer of power, not simply from one man to another, and one political party to another, but as the transference of power to the people.
Chicago Tribune: This may be remembered as the “forgotten man” speech for the attention Trump devoted to Americans who are struggling economically. They gave him the presidency. His inaugural speech confirmed that he intends to double down on this priority.
San Francisco Chronicle: Donald Trump began his presidency as he campaigned: painting a dark portrait of a nation rife with crime, outwitted by foreigners, mired in economic malaise and ill-served by the aloof elites in Washington.
Miami Herald: Like it or not, Donald J. Trump has pulled off an incredible feat in U.S. political history, persuading millions of Americans that he can be the novice leader – the ultimate celebrity apprentice – who will improve their lot in life, their children’s future and our standing in the world stage. He can start now – by leading like he means it.
Dallas Morning News: It was time for Donald Trump to put away the no-holds-barred language of the campaign trail. Instead, he doubled down, keeping faith with that tough-talking populist message. His is a hard-nosed pragmatism that stands every chance of reducing, rather than uplifting, this nation. It was not an auspicious start.
Takes from abroad
Irish Times: It was a speech of generalities without specifics. What happens tomorrow? We have no idea. But, apparently, “The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action.”
The Telegraph: Winston Churchill would not have approved of the isolationist flavour of “America First” but, likewise, he probably would have argued against tearing up the precious, necessary Atlantic alliance on the basis of personal disapproval of the president. Mr. Trump is in charge now. The UK has to find some way of making him work to our benefit.
Toronto Star: Donald Trump’s ringing cry in his inaugural address to put “only America first, America first” (he repeated the phrase for emphasis) is the most inward-looking vision that any incoming American president has put forward in many decades. As the United States enters an era of unabashed “America first” populism, Canada and its other allies won’t just feel the sting of protectionism on economic matters. They will also have to figure out who will be their ultimate leader when things go wrong.
The Guardian: The new president’s message could not have been clearer. He came to shatter the veneer of unity and continuity represented by the peaceful handover. And he may have succeeded. In 1933, Roosevelt challenged the world to overcome fear. In 2017, Mr. Trump told the world to be very afraid.
New Zealand Herald: The new president is doing his utmost to strike unifying notes in his inaugural address this morning. But unity is never one-way. Opponents and critics need to adopt an open mind to his proposals, looking for the good in them or at least making the best of them if they can.
Syndicates’ take
David Leonhardt: There is a reason that City College and California’s universities evoke such warm nostalgia: They fulfilled the country’s highest ideals – of excellence, progress and opportunity. Many of those same colleges, and many others, still do. They deserve more than nostalgia.
Nicholas Kristof: And, now, we pause for a fact-based note of optimism. Really. By some important metrics, 2016 was the best year in the history of humanity. And 2017 will probably be better still.
Frank Bruni: The one word that never occurs to Donald Trump.
Michael Gerson: Donald Trump’s funeral oration for Reaganism and conservatism.
Ross Douthat: The press must not imitate Donald Trump.
Leonard Pitts Jr.: If there is a silver lining in Donald Trump’s inauguration, it is that Republicans now have the White House, the Congress and no excuses in their ability to fix the “American carnage.”
Ruben Navarrette: Former Mexican President Vicente Fox should cease his Twitter attack on Donald Trump. Illegal immigration into the United States is a complicated and explosive topic that should be off-limits to any Mexican leader, past or current.
Gail Collins: OK, let’s move on. Not a time for small-minded carping. Big carps only.
Kathleen Parker: There’s a reason people are clashing with police. There’s a reason a large throng of women (and their male sympathizers) will be protesting the new president and his boasts about manhandling women at his pleasure.
E.J. Dionne Jr.: Our new president: radical, divisive and so bleak.
David Brooks: We’ve never had a major national leader as professionally unprepared, intellectually ill-informed, morally compromised and temperamentally unfit as the man taking the oath today. So let’s not lessen the shock factor that should reverberate across this extraordinary moment.
Tweets of the day
“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.” It was such a silly lie. Many people showed up for Donald Trump’s inaugural, but not nearly as many as claimed by President Donald Trump and by Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary. Do we believe them or our lying eyes? Twitter answered.
“The point of a silly lie like Spicer’s isn’t to convince people of its truth. It’s to demonstrate the powerlessness of the truth.(h/t Havel)” Bill Kristol @BillKristol
“This is called a statement you’re told to make by the President. And you know the President is watching.” Ari Fleischer @AriFleischer
“One of fundamental problems w/ what President Trump, Conway & Spicer is doing, is that when country needs to believe you, they won’t.” Matthew Dowd @matthewjdowd
“I’ve been a press secretary too. We all make mistakes, but I never lied for my boss and he never asked me to lie. That’s when you quit.” Kevin Eckery @keckery
This story was originally published January 23, 2017 at 5:31 AM with the headline "Donald Trump’s reality, as told by Sean Spicer – and many others."