He urged the public of students not to think that they were too young to accomplish great things, before waxing the prices. “Do not try to be someone else,” he implored, after having attacked a regular procedure for unauthorized immigrants. And he told them not to consider themselves victims, before diverting the way in which the 2020 elections were “faked” against him.
Thursday evening, President Trump spoke to graduates in 2025 of the University of Alabama, which are the subject of obstacles between campaign rally equipment and an beginning speech when he used his past political grievances to encourage students to fight for their future.
Addressing the students of Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, flanked by panels which read “The American Dream is back”, Trump told students that they were “the first class graduated from the golden age of America” and used his return story to encourage students to trust their instincts and be ambitious as they sail in the world.
“In recent years, too many of our young people have really learned to consider themselves victims, to blame people and to be angry,” he said. “But in America, we reject this idea that anyone who was born victim. Our heroes are those who take care of their own destiny, make their own chance and determine their own fate, despite the chances.”
At times of the address, the president struck familiar advice for university graduates. But Mr. Trump – who admitted that he had not used his telepromitative for a large part of the speech – turned to various diatribes that echoed the political appearances he presented this week to celebrate his 100th day of power. The largely receptive crowd has often applauded the injection of dispersion of the problems of the price of eggs to the rights of transgender, a microcosm of an era when even the palum of a diploma discourse cannot escape the policy of the moment.
Some of Mr. Trump’s stories focused on how he had himself been the victim of his political career, after counting by other politicians who would never have thought that he could become president to potentially face another accusation.
He also renounced his victories, telling his electoral results, including his commanding victory in Alabama, who, according to him, had the impression of “at home” when he started as a candidate in 2015. A great gathering he organized in the state was among the first signs that Mr. Trump could have something beyond the coastal call.
“So don’t let anyone tell you that something is impossible,” he said. “Never, never, in America, the impossible is what we all do best. There is nothing that you can’t do if you are ready to fight for that.”
“Fighting, fighting, fighting,” he added, invoking a slogan stimulated by an attempted assassination failed on the campaign path last year.
Trump told graduates that they had to “break the system a little and follow your own instincts”, apparently describing its cheeky and flooding strategy that plunged the federal government into chaos and the country on the verge of a constitutional crisis.
“The change is never easy, the more you succeed, the more those who have a direct interest in the past will resist you,” he said.
Trump also swore how he faced much less resistance in his second mandate, citing “internet people” and others who are now bowing against him. “They all hated me during my first mandate,” he said, adding with an explanive that they were kissing him now.
Even in a university city, Mr. Trump was in relatively friendly territory in the highly republican state, which he easily carried in his three presidential offers. But there have been demonstrations, and a petition for democrats at the University of Alabama and the local NAACP chapter against the appearance of Mr. Trump attracted more than 26,000 signatures.
“The Americans wake up once again that this grass monarch wants to reign over us as a king,” said Braden Vick, president of the University of Alabama, in a statement announcing the demonstration.
About two kilometers from Coleman Coliseum, the University Democrats organized a demonstration joined by the former representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas and former Senator Doug Jones of Alabama.
“We must present ourselves where the fight is, and this includes places like Alabama, which has just been struck off by the Democratic Party for too long,” said O’Rourke in an interview after the demonstration. “And the message was: people have power. And when people show up, as they did during the demonstration today or the marches or these town halls.
Benard Simelton, president of the ALABAMA NAACP, compared Trump to the former state governor, George Wallace, who built his political career as a populist and segregationist.
“He is the president of all, and yet he failed each citizen with his division and destructive policy, while inflicting a horror on our Hispanic, Latinos and others communities,” he said in a statement opposing his visit. “Wallace’s infamous words can still be heard today,” segregation today, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever “.”
But Mr. Trump was enthusiastically received by the thousands of participants from Coleman Coliseum. Mr. Trump’s address was part of a “special ceremony” before 6,000 students begin on Friday attending official graduation ceremonies. The pre-commissioning ceremony was optional for students and tickets were opened to guests.
Despite the drop in the notes of Mr. Trump’s approval, the start offered a window on the resilience of a large part of his support outside Washington, and a gauge on the change of culture in the country which made him elect.
There were at least as many red hats “Make America Great Again” in the crowd as special red graduation hats meaning the weighted average of 4.0 of a graduate. The crowd burst into songs of “USA”, reheeded from Mr. Trump from his sports teams and roared when he spoke of “clean banks in the Gulf of America”. They applauded when he spoke of preventing transgender women from playing in female sports teams, and some laughed when Mr. Trump spent several minutes to make matters of matches that involve transgender players.
Mr. Trump’s warm reception came as he takes an assault on the higher education system. While the administration has so far been largely targeted by the most elite colleges in the country, the University of Alabama has not been spared.
Last month, a doctoral student at the University of Alabama was detained by the federal immigration authorities, In the midst of the administration campaign to expel non -citizen students for participating in forms of protest. Alireza Doroudi, An Iranian citizen was legally in the United States and detainees in Louisiana.
Trump used the address to take shots at Harvard, who resisted him in the administration effort to revise the institutions he considers too liberal and powerful. Mr. Trump boasted that his administration retains billions of people at HarvardAnd opposed the two universities to each other – as if it provided a battle.
“It is clear to see that the next chapter in American history will not be written by the Harvard Crimson,” he said. “It will be written by you, the crimson tide.”