The Inauguration’s Bright Side

The world as we know it changes drastically today, and not in any good way. A nation that was born of an effort to rid itself of a king will come perilously close to creating a king when it inaugurates Donald Trump as our next president.

Bad side first: If Trump keeps his promises, he will immediately begin unleashing a “shock and awe” blitz of executive orders that are designed to reshape the nation – reshape the world, for that matter – into his own neo-Nazi image.

“Shock and awe” tactics are designed to overwhelm opponents and drive them – us! — into a state of confusion, resignation and surrender – to wear us down and make us give up.

At the same time, it appears the MAGA-controlled Senate is poised to approve his nominations for various Cabinet secretaries and other offices, regardless of how horrendously unqualified and dangerous most of them are. Once again, a quick sampler of Trump’s appointees:

• Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, has weak qualifications, showed at his hearing that he does not understand the job, and will not promise to reject a president’s order to do something unconstitutional.
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, believes against all medical experience that no vaccine is safe and vaccines cause autism.
• Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, has a long affinity for Vladimir Putin, blames NATO and the U.S. for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and claims the U.S. is wholly responsible for Putin’s nuclear brinksmanship.
• Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education, wants to defund public schools and privatize our public school system.
• Doug Bergman, Secretary of the Interior, is a climate change denier who helped bring $1 billion in Big Oil contributions to Trump’s campaign.
• Kash Patel, Director of the FBI, is a Trump loyalist with a history of undermining justice.

That’s just to name six. The list goes on. But yes, today will not be a good day and shock and awe are coming. But there are silver linings to these clouds.

As I wrote in this newsletter on Dec. 31, “Trump is Going Down”, the Senate already had denied his demand that it let him appoint his Cabinet members without going through the Senate’s “advise and consent” duty, including holding public hearings; House Republicans had denied his demand that it suspend the debt ceiling so he wouldn’t have to deal with it when he takes office; Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis insulted him by signaling he would not appoint his daughter-in-law U.S. senator; his first choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, humiliated him by disqualifying himself over mostly moral matters that resemble Trump’s history; and the Republican Party openly split between the working-class MAGAs and the Billionaire MAGAS.

Now Trump’s inauguration arrives, and maybe he already bumbled it. At the last minute, he moved the inauguration from the outdoors into Capitol Rotunda, saying he did so because of the bitter cold that was expected. It’s more likely, of course, that he didn’t want the TV-watching world to see that he did not have a huge crowd. (Barack Obama also faced brutally cold weather the day he was inaugurated, but a sea of attendees nonetheless filled the National Mall.)

That means thousands of people who had paid thousands of dollars to get there will be relegated to standing outside in that bitter cold watching his procession as it moves to the Capitol.

They’re already howling angry over it but they, and working people everywhere, should get even angrier today when they watch the inauguration on television and see a warm and happy Trump surrounded by America’s three richest men. It will be a clear declaration to them that Trump does not need their votes anymore so he does not need them, and so he is abandoning them for his super-rich comrades. He will be claiming, publicly for the first time, that he is dead set on destroying our democracy and replacing it with an oligarchy that he rules.

Add to that Trump’s very real pushes to 1) cut taxes on America’s corporations and its wealthiest people and pay for it by cutting such things as Social Security and health care benefits for the rest of us, and 2) levy tariffs against most nations in the world, the costs of which will quickly be passed on to the consumer and thus raise the prices on virtually everything.

Toss in that Wall Street Journal poll a few days ago that showed that few of Trump’s long-stated plans are popular with Americans. Only 46 percent of those polled approve his Cabinet nominees. More than 60 percent oppose his plans to fire thousands of nonpartisan civil servants and replace them with loyalists. More than 60 percent also oppose his plan to eliminate the Department of Education. Almost 75 percent oppose his plan to deport undocumented Americans. And more than two-thirds oppose his calls to take control of Greenland.

Add all that together and this anti-Trump rolling snowball could become an avalanche. It would seem logical that working people, once it sinks in that Trump lied to them to get elected and now is tossing them aside and he’s set on making the rich richer, the poor poorer, and the middle class smaller, they will begin abandoning him in droves, thus making it a little harder for him to practice his kingship.

All that negativity may not mean much to Trump directly because he already has the office and, lacking another impeachment, he will have it for four years and there’s little that can be done about that.

But once his bootlickers in the House and Senate – in state legislatures too — see Americans’ overwhelming rejection of him, maybe, just maybe, they’ll see the futility of swearing allegiance to such an unpopular lame-duck president and decide to protect themselves and join the riot. We could return to a semblance of normalcy by the 2026 midterms if we will not give up.

I’ll end this with words from the Substack writer Robert B. Hubbell:

“(W)e must not despair, we must not surrender, we must not give up. At the very least, we must endure, we must stand as witnesses to what is to come. That will be enough. If we can hold onto democracy, not quit, and not look away, the world will appear entirely different in four years.

“But for me — and I hope for you, too – it is not enough to endure. We must fight in whatever way we can to preserve democracy. In the states, in counties, and in cities. We must contest school board elections, elect judges and justices, and regain control of state legislatures. We must note every mean-spirited, selfish, short-sighted action taken by vulnerable legislators in Congress. We must begin to prepare for the 2026 midterms on Monday,
January 20, 2025.”

Hubbell closes with this:

“It is time to set aside our grief and disappointment. It is time to act. Expressing outrage is necessary and good so long as it is strategic and purposeful. Unchanneled rage and despair will discourage others. Righteous indignation with a goal will move us forward.

“It is time to undertake the difficult, thankless, sacred work of reclaiming democracy. Every generation must do so. It is our turn.”