Donald Trump took over as U.S. president Friday in the same way he conducted his upstart campaign, with a mixture of blustery salesmanship and naked contempt for the established political order.
In doing so, he sent a clear signal to the country and the world: He plans to govern as he campaigned, refusing to align himself even with his own Republican Party and taking his message directly to the American people.
He did nothing to dispel concerns that he would bring the cult of personality he built over the election campaign into the White House, and he offered little in the way of olive branches to the tens of millions of Americans who did not vote for him in the most divisive election in modern U.S. history.
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