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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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I'm not sure how many people were watching compared to the Inauguration proper, but right after the end of the Inauguration ceremony, Trump went downstairs to the 'Emancipation Hall' inside the Capitol to give a second speech to his supporters -- it was 33 minutes, vs. 29 minutes for his official Inaugural, and it was basically a mash-up of his stump speech with improvised riffing on the news of the day (Biden's last-minute 11th-and-a-half hour pardons of his family and political supporters). More importantly, Trump said that his staff & advisors told him he couldn't say certain things in his official Inaugural, so now he gets a chance to say all of them, which makes this a kind of Inaugural 2.0. I honestly don't know what to make of it, and I expect that this speech might actually overshadow the Inaugural Address itself (especially since Trump said he thought that the 2.0 speech was a better speech than the official speech upstairs!)

I genuinely have no idea what to make of this.

Will he give hit bitcoin and 'tech people' what they want?

The official speech was a teleprompter speech, was pre-written, and as usual Trump hated every second of giving it.

The 2.0 speech was largely impromptu, involved Trump talking from his head, and had his actual energy.

Trump is an engaging off-the-cuff speaker, and a terrible, terrible speech reader. And he knows this, which is why he hates pre-written speeches.