A roundup of reactions to the inauguration

MIAMI HERALD:

So it, whatever it is, has begun.

Donald J. Trump, businessman and showman, is the nation's 45th commander-in-chief. Depending on which bubble you filled in on Election Day, the unthinkable or the thinkable starts now.

For many Americans, this transition of presidential power comes with great joy and a sense of rebirth. For so many others, including minorities, immigrants, women, the LGBT community, the free press — indeed, much of the world — there is great fear and apprehension.

Eight years ago, Barack Obama, with soaring and authentic oratory, was the candidate of change. Friday, the no-holds-barred Donald Trump, using the language of a street fighter, no less authentic to his supporters, wears that mantle.

For those who wanted a different path for America and vow to fight for it, it's a difficult time. But for the sake of your blood pressure, it's time to take a deep, deep breath and give Trump a chance. If he turns out to be the president they feared, then unite to fight him at every turn.

E.J. DIONNE JR., WASHINGTON POST:

In his inaugural address, he offered no outreach to those who had opposed him, no acknowledgment of the achievements of any of his predecessors, and he spoke as if he were taking over a country on the verge of ruin.

If power shifted decisively on Friday to Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress, something else switched sides as well: passion. The political energy in the country is now on the side arrayed against Trump and his agenda. Republicans no longer have Obama as an object toward whom they can direct the country's ire. With control of both elected branches, the GOP, including Trump, is the establishment.

The relatively small gathering at Trump's inauguration was a hint of how shallow his movement's roots might be. It's true that Washington and its surrounding area stood solidly for Hillary Clinton, so there was no nearby crowd for Trump to mobilize. Still, a man who said his inauguration would break all records once again found his empty boasting refuted by reality.

REX HUPPKE, CHICAGO TRIBUNE

I want to know who President Trump considers "the people."

"Jan. 20th, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again."

Who are the people? All of us? Just those who voted him into office? Are "the people" just the ones he referred to as "the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind"? Does "the people" encompass those who disagree with him? Does that group include opponents he has demeaned, people he has called losers and dopes and liars?

Because if he's referring to all of the people, to all of the Americans he now leads, then he will need to give thought to what "the people" want and not to just what his people want.

His inauguration speech echoed the fiery, snarling negativity of his campaign stump speeches. That's what some love about him. And it's what a majority of the people — the people of this country, not just the people who embrace his rhetoric — dislike about him.

DAVID BANKS, ASSISTANT COMMENTARY EDITOR, STAR TRIBUNE

With the aim of being hopeful — though at the risk of seeming facile — I ask: Couldn't this be a useful way to look at American politics today?

President Trump, the new lord of thunder at the American bully pulpit, has always seemed like a pretty negative guy. In his estimation, policies are not merely flawed; they are a disaster. The problems of our country (as described in his Inaugural Address on Friday), are an "American carnage."

This isn't the sort of language that induces progress. Or is it?

My assessment of our country in the 21st century is not like Trump's. Having lived nearly 50 years, and being remotely aware of what went down before I arrived, I think the nation is on a steady arc of improvement. I'm not thrilled to see Donald Trump in the Oval Office, for myriad reasons. But I'm willing to accept, albeit nervously, that sometimes the charge you need is precisely the one you don't want.

Positive, negative, neutral. Maybe that's what it takes, in these times, to bind a building block for a broader prosperity.

This is addressed specifically to the numerical majority of American voters who did not choose the man inaugurated Friday:

Get used to it. Trump is extremely likely to be in office for at least the next four years.

There was some thought at first that maybe he didn't really want to be president — he just wanted to win the election, to make a point. That turned out to be wrong.

There is and was some thought that he might eventually be impeached. No U.S. president has yet been removed from office, and the chances that the Republican legislators who currently make up the majority in both houses of Congress would oust Trump, even if his governance turned out to be a branding operation for his enterprises, are close to zero.

Four of our presidents have been assassinated, but the security measures that the U.S. Secret Service can now employ are such that it is extremely unlikely to occur again.

Washington Post cartoonist Herbert Block, who had the habit of drawing Richard M. Nixon with a five o'clock shadow, drew a cartoon offering Nixon a free shave when Nixon was elected president for the first time in 1968. (That turned out to be misguided optimism, of course.)