Trump's Uneasy Gamble
Donald Trump’s combative and confrontational speech, unusual for an inaugural address, encapsulated the defining political gamble he is presenting to a Republican Party still uneasily settling into his harness.
Trump’s narrow victory last November pushed at every fault line in American politics, sharply dividing the country along lines of race, generation, education and geography. His inaugural address, centered on disdain for “the establishment” and political leadership, showed that he remains committed to a course that is more likely to deepen than narrow those divides––a dynamic underscored by the virtually unprecedented protests that erupted just beyond the inaugural parade route on Friday.
In his address, Trump offered a definition of his presidency that spoke directly to the anxieties of his uneasy electoral coalition centered on the non-college educated and non-urban whites that supported him in
