Vice President Pence, Mr. Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
On April 30, 1789, President George Washington took the first presidential oath of office. He did so in the city where I have built my life, a city I love like no other, New York City.
On that day he spoke of “the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me…” I am aware as I stand before my fellow Americans today of both the magnitude of your trust in me and of the extraordinary difficulties that lie ahead for all of us.
I also realize that I am an outsider, perhaps the largest outsider, to ever take the presidential oath of office. But I embrace this truth for a simple reason: for too long too many of our citizens have been outsiders to the American Dream. And just as this outsider has defied convention by kicking open the doors of The White House, I hope to continue to defy precedent by shedding the light of the American Experiment to corridors of the nation that have been dark and hopeless for too long.
You see, America has always embodied the spirit of the outsider…for it is outsiders who push and march and write and protest to make our nation live up to its highest ideals. It is outsiders who put themselves in harms way, who say what others don’t want to hear, who do not want to wait any longer to realize the promise that is the birthright of every American citizen.
This spirit is nothing new. It lived in the souls of the patriots who fought at Lexington & Concord. It encouraged Americans to join regiments and endure hardships at places like Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Antietam. This spirit has not diminished or dulled in the last hundred years for it fought for democracy in World War I and triumphed over Fascism in World War II. Today, I know this spirit is strong because it does the work of humanity in places we don’t always hear about, in Dahaneh, in Najaf, in Kamdesh.
I ran for this office with a simple hope in mind: to make America great again. While I wholeheartedly believe there are already large reservoirs of greatness within in the American spirit, for too long that spirit has been faint or forgotten by too many of our fellow citizens who believe the American Dream is not for them, that it is only the province and the promise of the powerful and the privileged, the cosmopolitan and the well-connected.
And I know that making America great again is not something that can be achieved by one president, one office, or even one government. It can’t be legislated by the Congress or decided by the justices presiding on the Supreme Court. No, it must be rekindled by the masses of men and women who feel forgotten and abandoned, who sense that an America where everyone can dream big and reach high is forever elusive and out of their reach.
America is not a solo…it is a symphony.
It is a symphony because America only works if we all do our part. Let us transcend a politics of division that requires us to pit ourselves against one another. We can encourage business owners at the same time that our Congress writes laws to help the employees of those businesses. We can acknowledge that our police officers are genuine heroes worthy of our endless adoration and respect while also calling attention to the abuses that sometimes occur within the system in which they work. We can admire California’s wind turbines at the same time we rejoice when there is an energy boom in Texas and South Dakota.
We must sing the song of America in unison.
For us to be truly great we all must believe the same thing: that America is for all of us. It is a place where the migrant farmer laboring in the hot agricultural fields of Central California can dream of better days to come. It is a place where the coal miner in Western Pennsylvania can have faith that his children will attend college and be anything they want to be. It is a land where citizens in the middle of their lives can start a new career, go back to college, or pursue the dream they always ignored.
Yes, America is not a promise, it is a possibility.
It is a possibility that only exists when we do more than stand beside one another. We must talk to one another. We must give each other the benefit of the doubt. We must do as Scripture commands to love one another, even if we don’t always understand one another.
In the same spirit, Abraham Lincoln once stood in this very spot and implored his fellow Americans to “appeal to the better angels of their nature.” Six decades earlier President Jefferson reminded his fellow citizens after another contentious election that, “We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”
Today, I stand before you well aware that the challenges are profound. I know this. But I also believe America’s better days are yet to come, that freedom is our greatest weapon, and fairness to all is our greatest virtue. I do not believe that history defines us. I believe that we can define history if we will but summon the resolve, the idealism, and the wisdom to do so.
I embark on this righteous journey with these three words: Let. Us. Begin.