“Inauguration Day marks the beginning of the nightmare for millions of people across the country,” she said. “For many of us, we simply cannot afford to hold onto a hollow hope that Trump will change course on the disasters he pledged in his campaign. We understand that we have to use everything in our power to resist and force a detour from taking us all backwards.”
Remember the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2008? It was one of the most inspiring events in our nation’s history. Approximately two million Americans turned out on in the freezing cold on the National Mall to show their respect for the nation’s first African-American President, a man who through the force of his charisma and good will vowed to unite a country left in horrific economic straits by the former Occupier of the Oval Office.
Millions watched the event on television. Office work came to a halt. Concerts, gala balls, thousands performing community service, huge parades made up the event. Demand for tickets soon overwhelmed capacity. It was a truly historic occasion:
For the first time, the committee opened the entire length of the National Mall as the public viewing area for the swearing-in ceremony, breaking with the tradition of past inaugurations. Selected American citizens participated in the train tour and other inaugural events, and a philanthropist organized a People's Inaugural Ball for disadvantaged people who otherwise would be unable to afford to attend the inaugural festivities. Among the celebrations for the inauguration, the committee hosted a first-ever Neighborhood Inaugural Ball with free or affordable tickets for ordinary citizens.
The inauguration of Donald J. Trump is going to be a rather different affair. Trump was not elected on a platform of hope, but of hate. His appointments this week simply confirmed our worst expectations—not only is this an Administration elected on hatred but one that plans to thrive and exist by promulgating continual hate and xenophobia.
Who, then, do we expect is going to attend Trump’s inauguration? Who is going to take the time and effort out of their schedule to celebrate the swearing-in of this man?
His most enthusiastic supporters will be there, spewing their hate and xenophobia in our faces. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of racists from the ”heartland” who voted for the deportation of Latinos and Hispanics, who laughed at Trump’s abuse of women, who think Muslims ought to be registered or just kept out of the country altogether, who shouted “Lock her up!” and “Build That Wall!” with so much gusto, they’re all going to be there, sticking their middle finger up at the rest of us. That’s what they thrive on, their hatred of us. White hate groups like the KKK, the Neo-Nazis and their new supremacist punk pals in the “alt-right” will make a prominent appearance. Militia groups will come armed and waving their guns threateningly. Racial epithets will be screamed. Sean Hannity will drape himself in the flag and shed a tear for all the patriotism he’s witnessing.
And then there will be the people who his supporters targeted with all that hate—that would be the rest of us: liberals, minorities, and women.
Anna Galland, the executive director of MoveOn.org, told me this week, “I expect mass peaceful protests with hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, around the Inauguration and in other moments.” She said, “I cut my teeth as an organizer in the movement opposing the Iraq war. I feel that that was a smaller trial run for what we’re going to be seeing right now.”
In fact, organizations such as Move-On are playing catch-up to organic progressive movements against Trump that have cropped up around the country since November 8th.
Already, protests from Portland, Oregon, to Washington, D.C., have gathered more momentum than progressive organizations had expected. “MoveOn and our allies are sprinting to catch up to the mass movement that’s emerging,” Galland said. “We did three hundred and fifty peaceful gatherings less than twenty-four hours after the election results were announced. Then over the weekend you saw tens of thousands of people marching in the streets.”
A historian of Presidential Inaugurations believes the mood at this one is likely to be unique:
Jim Bendat, author of “Democracy’s Big Day,” a history of Inaugurations, told me, “In other elections, the protesters would largely wait until Inauguration Day. To me, this is unprecedented in terms of what’s happening already.
A women’s and men’s march on Washington to protest Trump’s abuse of women and demonstrate unity against such behavior has already garnered 70,000 RSVP’s and is expected to swell into the hundreds of thousands, as more and more folks awake to the sickening reality that this Administration and its Republican enablers in Congress represents. The anticipated size of the protests expected is already raising alarm bells in right-wing media; they all have begun to whine on cue about “paid protesters”. Trump’s Wormtongue, Steve Bannon, will doubtlessly unleash an avalanche of smears against the protestors through his Breitbart “news” agency, some of which will be parroted by the traditional media in its stenographic role.
So yes, this Inauguration will be quite different. The only question left seems to be whether the pro-Trump racists and the anti-Trump protestors—the “two Americas” we’ve heard so much about-- will actually see each other. The Presidential Inauguration Committee, a little-known group staffed by the the president-elect’s appointees (Sheldon Adelson is one, along with other billionaires backing Trump), is already making sure that the event will be sanitized so that only Trump supporters will be anywhere near the Trump International Hotel along the inaugural parade route. The PIC is guaranteed by the National Park Service a certain amount of reserved space along the parade route (including all of Freedom Plaza and parts of Pennsylvania Avenue), allowing it to grant access to a “pre-screened” group of ticket buyers and the media. Of course, the KKK and Neo-Nazis don’t make for great TV, so the faces planted there by Trump’s appointees won’t be wearing their racism (or armbands) on their sleeve.
Groups planning to protest had sued to be permitted to protest in front of the hotel. These suits were successfully opposed by the Justice Department, which won a ruling against the protesters early this year:
Because tickets to the PIC’s bleachers are not traditionally available to the public (though Obama made some available), protesters say the government is essentially supporting one-sided political speech, that of the incoming administration.
However, US district court judge Paul L Friedman ruled in favor of the National Park Service in January. Friedman ruled the inauguration parade is essentially “government speech”, meaning it is irrelevant whether the speech is one sided.
The US department of justice also argued the speech could not be one-sided, because “the views of the incoming administration are completely unknown” until the administration is in place.
That may have made sense before Trump. Now it may be the most hollow argument imaginable.