It seems like it’s been years since January 20, 2017. A lot of people, many of them devout moderates, said that we should give Donald Trump a chance. He’s not really going to do the things he says he’s going to do. He’s not a true conservative. He’s just saying those things to get elected. Others preferred to heed the words of Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.”
Candidate Trump showed us who he was throughout the campaign. President Trump didn’t hesitate to tell us how he feels about his constituents during his inaugural address:
“Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”
Me, my daughter Joshua and her friend Nicole took a camera to the inauguration, but alas we missed the speech. Although we tried at several locations, we never made it past security. In what seemed like symbolism, we found anti-Trump protestors north of the mall, all of them in Maya Angelou’s camp. South of the mall, we found many more pro-Trump attendees, also trying to get through security. There were also a number of protesters on the south side of the mall whose motivations I still don’t understand. The video is below:
Within hours of the inauguration that so many of us missed, the pages on LGBT rights, civil rights, climate change, and health care were removed from the “issues” section of the official White House website. Like icing on a mostly Styrofoam replica of Obama’s real inauguration cake, the video below popped up on my daughter’s twitter feed as we were making our way home.
Amazing. This brave woman stood against anti-Muslim protesters at the Islamic Center in Washington D.C. That’s a true ally. #Inauguration pic.twitter.com/bp2DycFL9m
— sarah amy harvard (@amyharvard_) January 20, 2017
I fear that the anti-Trump enthusiasm will wane as the long days of the Trump Administration stretch into weeks, months and years. On the whole, I’d have to say that January 20, 2017, was not a good day.
