Common Sentences

Two Inaugurations

Tuesday, January 20, 2026, marked the first day of New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill’s term in office. It also marked the first anniversary of the commencement of President Donald Trump’s second term.

https://www.timesargus.com/news/national/new-jersey-governor/image_a5b8fe42-3b7c-5d45-b4df-fc0e723436b9.html

Governor-elect Sherrill’s entrance, Inauguration Day.

The Sherrill inaugural had an endearing, slightly hokey Jersey vibe. A Revolutionary fife and drum corps skirled the Sherrill family onstage. Emerson Crooks, a Vietnam veteran, began to lead the assemblage in the flag salute; he couldn’t be heard. A technician dashed out and replaced the microphone for the second half of the pledge. As Crooks exited the stage. Sherrill chased after him, to thank him personally. Sherrill similarly pursued the college student who’d sung the national anthem. After Sherrill took the oath, a male voice came over the mic, and if you’ve ever been to a Jersey wedding, you’d recognize the tone: “Ladies and Gentlemen: Please put your hands together once again, for the Governor of New Jersey, Mikie SHERRILL!”

The two inaugural addresses, Trump’s and Sherrill’s, shared the usual lofty predictions, calls for unity, and invocations of long past glories. But they were fundamentally different, and not just because Tucker Carlson and a gaggle of tech oligarchs missed Sherrill’s Newark address.

https://time.com/7207709/trump-inauguration-guest-list-tech-executives-foreign-leaders-celebrities-politicians/

A cross section of average Americans in attendance at the second Trump inauguration.

Despite vast promises of a nation and a world transformed—“the golden age of America begins right now”—Trump’s address was about him. “Over the past eight years, I have been tested and challenged more than any president in our 250-year history,” which might have surprised Lincoln and FDR if they were watching from the American Presidents’ Grille in the great beyond. Referencing the 2024 assassination attempt, he explained, spookily, that “I was saved by God to make America great again.” Trump claimed that “my recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal.” He may have been thinking of a mandate from heaven rather than from his fellow citizens; he got only 49.8% of the popular vote. People had doubted his capacity to regain power, “But as you see today, Here I am.” (He also included some retrospective howlers, such as: “the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda” and “Never again will the power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents.”)

A quarter century younger than the president, Sherrill delivered an energetic speech. Her signature smile flickered through much of the address. She assayed a little tame, politician humor (stating that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in the “greater Camden metropolitan area,” noting that South Jerseyans strangely called “pork roll” what North Jerseyans know to be “Taylor Ham.” If you’re reading this in another state, trust me, you’re not missing much if you’ve never eaten either.)

1776 framed the speech, apt for this 250^th year of American independence. She referenced the victory at Trenton, Tom Paine writing The American Crisis in Newark, Jersey’s subsequent unanimous ratification of the Constitution and its early ratification of the Bill of Rights. She explained that 1776 was also the year that the state adopted its motto: Liberty and Prosperity.

Sherrill went right at Trump without ever naming him, as the scourge of Liberty. She cited the Declaration’s bill of indictment, implicitly charging Trump with blocking popular legislation, obstructing justice, meddling with the judicial branch and maintaining standing armies in time of peace. “This election,” she said, “proved that the people of New Jersey recognize the parallels” between George III and Trump. Invoking life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, she said that “every human being is endowed with these rights by their creator. Not by a king.” People stood and cheered.

Pretty gutsy in light of Minnesota. But she quoted Newark’s Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a refugee from the Nazis: “the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence.” She let that sit: “Not here. Not New Jersey.”

She pivoted to Prosperity. She kept invoking the word “opportunity,” and, to show her understanding that Jerseyans are beyond concerned about the cost of living and especially their utility costs, she paused the speech to sign two executive orders designed to halt the rise in electrical bills.

Earlier, she’d three times invoked the American Dream, contending that Jersey had for generations offered the opportunity to chase that dream to immigrants from around the world and to migrants from the Jim Crow South. In contrast to Trump’s 2016 pledge to Build The Wall, Sherrill said that “the American Dream starts with opening a door.”

As it happened, in another only-in-Jersey touch, the inaugural ball happened at The American Dream Mall, in the gritty Meadowlands. Malls are going belly up all over the state; she has a plan to convert vacant retail and office space into housing, expanding the stock and perhaps getting housing prices under control, opening anew a traditional element of the American Dream, home ownership.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paula-l-white-10ba8821_last-night-i-attended-governor-mikie-sherrill-activity-7419854280112656384-wxIT

The Governor of New Jersey visits one of the state’s malls.

I hope she does well, if only to prove that an inclusive, service-centered, undramatic approach is an excellent alternative to the mean-spirited, chaotic Trump governing style. Never having served in executive office, welcomed into office with a predicted blizzard, she’ll get tested early and often, perhaps by the regime in Washington, surely by Jersey political culture.

But she won 57% of the vote, and she inhabits one of the Union’s most powerful governor’s offices. So armed, she sets out to protect liberty and promote prosperity for all Jerseyans.