Of boldness: Some rhetorical pointers on Trump's inauguration address

Although media picked up on several darker flashes in the address, Trump was on his best behaviour

“Wonderful like is the case of boldness in civil business: what first? Boldness; what second and third? Boldness,” a philosopher once mused. For:

there is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise; and therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of men’s minds is taken, are most potent.

This philosopher was not talking about the rise and rise of President Donald J. Trump. But he might well have been:

Libels and licentious discourses against the state, when they are frequent and open; and in like sort, false news often running up