Donald Trump’s Inauguration Spectacle and the Democrats’ Dilemma
When I caught up yesterday afternoon with VF’s Joe Hagan, who was in DC among the MAGA faithful, he mentioned how “what we’re seeing is that this administration is going to be a perpetual campaign, a perpetual rally.” It’s certainly looking that way, as Donald Trump gathered supporters Sunday night in the Capital One Arena ahead of Monday’s address in the Capitol Rotunda, where he “painted a bleak picture of the country” and “cast himself as a conquering hero,” writes Eric Lutz.
The visuals were striking. With Melania Trump sporting a “fashionably dark” look, as Kase Wickman observed, Trump flaunted his tech industry clout by rolling out his radical agenda before billionaire moguls Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook—and, of course, Elon Musk. Meanwhile, Hagan notes, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were seated nearby, essentially watching “while he burns their entire administration to the ground,” a “shock and awe for his enemies and red meat for the base.”
More red meat was to come: Trump gave a second, rambling speech at the Capitol full of gripes and grudges, as Eve Batey writes, and later returned to the same arena where he signed several executive orders live on television before thousands of cheering fans, reports Katie Herchenroeder.
Watching this hours-long spectacle, and the speed at which the Trump administration is moving policy-wise, one might forget that there is still an opposition party in America. Fortunately, James Pogue is out this morning with a sweeping look at the state of the Democratic Party. Pogue relays a running political conversation he had during the 2024 race, from DNC late-night spots to an election-night viewing party at Peter Thiel’s house, and discusses the party’s identity and approach with lawmakers like Chris Murphy, Jamie Raskin, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who won again this past November in a red district.
“Do you know the term ‘obstacle fixation’? I learned this when I got my motorcycle endorsement,” Gluesenkamp Perez says, adding that Democrats were “so fixated on one particular problem that they drive straight into it. You do not save democracy by running around, yelling about saving democracy. You do it by demonstrating that democracy and democratic values deliver better quality of life for normal people.”
—Michael Calderone, editor
