We’ve heard a lot from Donald Trump on the campaign trail and but his inaugural speech, if it is anything other than cheap rhetoric aimed to please the peanut gallery, indicates that he sees the role of America in a substantially different way than perhaps any president since FDR’s first term.

First off, “we” appears 63 times. “I” is used three times. Compare and contrast with Obama’s “farewell” (ha, he’s never leaving) address where I, me or mine was used 73 times. If nothing else it shows a better appreciation for the presidency and what it means today than Obama had after eight years.

Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth.

Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs, and while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.

I really can’t disagree with this description of the problem. You may argue whether or not it is true but one of the basic principles in communication is P=R, perception = reality. Not only Trump’s supporters but Sanders’s supporters believed strongly that an elite was profiting from the work of many. It is difficult to look at the wreckage of American cities and, increasingly, exurbia and not see that we are becoming a nation not merely of haves and have-nots from a economic standpoint but one that is also divided by hope. For the first time in our history more people think that the standard of living available to their children will be below their own.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. Jan. 20, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.

This is a nice sentiment. It will be interesting to see how he makes this stick.

Americans want great schools for their children, safe neighborhoods for their families and good jobs for themselves. These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public, but for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists.

Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation. An education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge. And the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

This is not Morning in America stuff, this is America-in-the-ICU stuff. Quite honestly, I think it is refreshing that someone is saying the obvious. Kids in inner cities and in Appalachia are trapped in horrible-to-indifferent schools run by bureaucracies that specialize in featherbedding and self-dealing. Entire neighborhoods are run as gangland fiefs in no small part because is served Barack Obama’s political and tribal agenda better to make the police into the enemy and convince them that it was easier to respond to a murder that would never be solved rather than take a chance on going to prison for enforcing the law.

For many decades we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry, subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military.

We’ve defended other nations’ borders while refusing to defend our own and spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon.

One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world. But that is the past and now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first. America first.

This is very much in line with his campaign rhetoric. We’ll have to see what it means. I think clearly he’s saying that trade agreements can’t be measured in dollars, per se, they have to be measured in jobs gained and lost and that an increase in trade will not justify a loss of jobs. That is not a traditional Republican way of looking at the situation. The underlying assumption is that employment is a zero sum game and that true wealth is measured in gainfully employed people and not in flows of capital. I’m pretty much there, myself. The fact that his Commerce Secretary-designate is also doubtful about the value of some free trade agreements indicates this may very well be more than rhetoric.

We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American. We will seek friendship and good will with the nations of the world, but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.

We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow. We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth.

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America, and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The Bible tells us how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.

This is straight from Commodore Stephen Decatur’s famous toast, “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”

We’ll have to see what this actually means. Taken literally, it means that we would have let Iraq swallow up Kuwait (at least by my reading). Taken literally it could mean that if American interest demand that we abandon an ally, we do so. Not that that would be a departure from how we do act (see Vietnam) but it would be the first time that our national policy was “that was then, this is now.”

This is the first major departure we’ve seen from the Wilsonian dogma that has pretty much undergirded American foreign policy for a century. I harkens back to Andrew Jackson… minus the Indian Removals… at least so far.

What does it mean? If Trump governs according to this address his presidency will be an attempt to transform America in a way that Obama could never have dreamed of. He is basically saying that everything about the way we currently operate is on the table for negotiation. Either that or he’s going to be proven a massive fraud…

Well, it is done.

Donald Trump is our 45th President. Love him or hate him. There it is.