Last words from "the only true outsider ever to win the presidency."

From Trump's Farewell Address, which I didn't watch live or on YouTube. I waited for the transcript, the cold record. He begins with something he ought to have been talking about since mid-November, instead of the doomed notion that he had won the election:

As I conclude my term as the 45th President of the United States, I stand before you truly proud of what we have achieved together. We did what we came here to do, and so much more...

The next part of the speech is full of thanks. Thanks to people who worked with him and thanks to America for giving him the "honor beyond description, " the "extraordinary privilege" of serving as President.

He forefronts an expression of horror for the attack on the Capitol:

All Americans were horrified by the assault on our capital. Political violence is an attack on everything we cherish as Americans. It can never be tolerated. 

He calls for unity:

Now more than ever, we must unify around our shared values and rise above the partisan rancor and forge our common destiny. 

Then he talks about himself. He was an outsider, "the only true outsider ever to win the presidency." 

I had not spent my career as a politician, but as a builder looking at open skylines and imagining infinite possibilities. I ran for president because I knew there were towering new summits for America just waiting to be scaled. I knew the potential for our nation was boundless as long as we put America first. So I left behind my former life and stepped into a very difficult arena, but an arena, nevertheless, with all sorts of potential if properly done....

All sorts of potential if properly done. That's a big "if." And by the way, you don't "do" an "arena." And "a builder looking at open skyline" proceeds to build buildings, not to climb mountains. If mountains were there "just waiting to be scaled," then "he was not looking at an open skyline." Experience building buildings doesn't transfer to mountain climbing, so it's not just a mixed metaphor, it's a metaphor switch that draws attention to the problem that his real estate career did not prepare him for the work of governing. It was an immensely risky lateral move, and yet he jumped into it with intense, bizarre confidence, scaring millions of people. Some of us are still scared! 

He lists his achievements. I say "his," but he says "we." This is an impressive list. I'm not saying I agreed with all of these choices, but I wanted Trump to be talking about these things for the last 2 months rather than the crazy dream of flipping the election results. Imagine if this had been what we were hearing:

We passed the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history. We slashed more job-killing regulations than any administration had ever done before. We fix our broken trade deals, withdrew from the horrible Trans-Pacific Partnership and the impossible Paris Climate Accord, renegotiated the one-sided South Korea deal. And we replaced NAFTA with the groundbreaking USMCA.... Also and very importantly, we imposed historic and monumental tariffs on China, made a great new deal with China.... 

We also unlocked our energy resources and became the world’s number one producer of oil and natural gas by far. Powered by these policies, we built the greatest economy in the history of the world. 

We reignited America’s job creation and achieved record-low unemployment for African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women, almost everyone. Income soared, wages boomed. The American dream was restored and millions were lifted from poverty in just a few short years. It was a miracle. 

The stock market set one record after another, with 148 stock market highs during the short period of time, and boosted the retirements and pensions of hardworking citizens all across our nation. 401(k)s are at a level they’ve never been at before. We’ve never seen numbers like we’ve seen, and that’s before the pandemic and after the pandemic. We rebuilt the American manufacturing base, opened up thousands of new factories, and brought back the beautiful phrase Made in the USA. 

To make life better for working families, we doubled the child tax credit and signed the largest-ever expansion of funding for childcare and development. We joined with the private sector to secure commitments to train more than 16 million American workers for the jobs of tomorrow.

When our nation was hit with the terrible pandemic, we produced not one, but two vaccines with record-breaking speed and more will quickly follow.... 

When the virus took its brutal toll on the world’s economy, we launched the fastest economic recovery our country has ever seen. We passed nearly $4 trillion in economic relief, saved or supported over 50 million jobs, and slashed the unemployment rate in half. These are numbers that our country has never seen before. 

We created choice and transparency in healthcare, stood up to big pharma in so many ways, but especially in our effort to get favored nations clauses added, which will give us the lowest prescription drug prices anywhere in the world. We passed VA Choice, VA Accountability, Right to Try, and landmark criminal justice reform. 

We confirmed three new justices of the United States Supreme Court. We appointed nearly 300 federal judges to interpret our Constitution as written. 

[We] achieved the most secure border in US history. We have given our brave border agents and heroic ICE officers the tools they need to do their jobs better than they have ever done before and to enforce our laws and keep America safe. We proudly leave the next administration with the strongest and most robust border security measures ever put into place. This includes historic agreements with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, along with more than 450 miles of powerful new wall.... 

We reclaimed our sovereignty by standing up for America at the United Nations and withdrawing from the one-sided global deals that never served our interests. And NATO countries are now paying hundreds of billions of dollars more than when I arrived just a few years ago.... 

And perhaps most importantly of all, with nearly $3 trillion, we fully rebuilt the American military, all made in the USA. We launched the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces in 75 years, the Space Force. And last spring, I stood at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and watched as American astronauts returned to space on American rockets for the first time in many, many years....

We obliterated the ISIS caliphate and ended the wretched life of its founder and leader al-Baghdadi. We stood up to the oppressive Iranian regime and killed the world’s top terrorist, Iranian butcher, Qassem Soleimani. 

We recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. 

As a result of our bold diplomacy and principled realism, we achieved a series of historic peace deals in the Middle East. Nobody believed it could happen. The Abraham Accords opened the doors to a future of peace and harmony, not violence and bloodshed. It is the dawn of a new Middle East, and we are bringing our soldiers home. 

I am especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars....

We promoted a culture where our laws would be upheld, our heroes honored, our history preserved, and law-abiding citizens are never taken for granted....

The speech ends looking forward, with the expression of hopes and warnings:

But the greatest danger we face is a loss of confidence in ourselves, a loss of confidence in our national greatness.... No nation can long thrive that loses faith in its own values, history, and heroes for these are the very sources of our unity and our vitality.... We must never forsake our belief in America. The key to national greatness lies in sustaining and instilling our shared national identity. That means focusing on what we have in common, the heritage that we all share. 

At the center of this heritage is also a robust belief in free expression, free speech, and open debate. Only if we forget who we are and how we got here could we ever allow political censorship and blacklisting to take place in America. It’s not even thinkable. Shutting down free and open debate violates our core values and most enduring traditions. 

In America, we don’t insist on absolute conformity or enforce rigid orthodoxies and punitive speech codes. We just don’t do that. America is not a timid nation of tame souls who need to be sheltered and protected from those with whom we disagree. That’s not who we are. It will never be who we are.... 

We are and must always be a land of hope, of light, and of glory to all the world.... As long as the American people hold in their hearts, deep and devoted love of country, then there is nothing that this nation can not achieve.....