WASHINGTON (AP) – Tradition suggests it’s time for Donald Trump to set aside the say-anything speaking style and rise to the inaugural moment.
But bucking tradition or ignoring it altogether, is what got Donald Trump to his inaugural moment.
When Trump stands on the west front of the Capitol on Friday and delivers his inaugural address, all sides will be waiting to see whether he comes bearing a unifying message for a divided nation or decides to play up his persona as a disrupter of the established order.
How Trump tends to that balancing act, in both style and content, will be a telling launch for his presidency.
“The inaugural is an address that is meant for the ages,’’ said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a communications professor and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. “In particular, it’s important when you’ve had a divisive election. You need to become president of all of the people, including those who vehemently opposed your election.’’
Trump seems to get that.
He’s spoken admiringly in recent weeks about the speeches of past presidents Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, and is said to be deeply involved in preparing his address.
“This is something very personal to him,’’ spokesman Sean Spicer said Wednesday, estimating the speech will run about 20 minutes. “He wants to talk about his vision, where he sees this country and where we are right now.’’
Trump told Fox on Tuesday that he’ll start his address with words of thanks to “everybody,’’ including President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, for being “so gracious.’’
The president-elect showed he can deliver a straight-forward, prepared address at the Republican convention, where he largely stuck to a script and shut down anti-Hillary Clinton chants of “lock her up’’ from the crowd of GOP loyalists.
But that address was strikingly dark in tone, sketching a portrait of an America in crisis, and he later embraced that chant from supporters at his freewheeling campaign rallies.
The inaugural address, by contrast, needs to be “an inherently aspirational speech,’’ said Michael Gerson, who wrote speeches for President George W. Bush and is a frequent Trump critic. “It has to be about the future and about your vision.’’
Abraham Lincoln ended his first inaugural address with a call for unity after some Southern states had formed the Confederacy, saying “every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’’
Veteran speechwriters have plenty of other advice for Trump and his chief wordsmith, Stephen Miller. Keep it short.
Don’t overdo the gravitas. Don’t gloat, the victory tour is over. No deviations from script.