The night before his Jan. 20 inauguration, Donald Trump took the stage at the latest of his seemingly 60,000 campaign rallies to tease how enjoyable his swearing-in ceremony would be. “You’re going to have a lot of fun watching television tomorrow,” he vowed. While I can think of quite a few adjectives to describe how it felt watching him take public office for the second time — “nauseating,” “repugnant,” “a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” — “fun” would not be one of them.
The clown with his pants falling down? Check. The scene where the villain is mean? Check. If those things are entertainment, Donald Trump’s second inauguration was right on the money.
Yet, sitting on my couch with a slight wine hangover from trying to drown out my anxieties before America hastened its decline, it was hard not to be moved by the true sense of spectacle. Moved to laughter, that is. The entire affair wasn’t flashy in the way that presidential inaugurations usually are, with grand displays of talent and showmanship from stars and politicians alike to make us believe in the boilerplate pledges for a bright future ahead. Rather, this inauguration was downright goofy, an ostentatious demonstration of absurdist pageantry and empty promises. Outfits ranged from terrible to hideous, hats almost took out spectators’ eyes, people were shoulder-checked by marines and everywhere you looked, there was a blonde woman whose makeup artist despises her, with lifeless eyes reflecting her morally bankrupt soul. But more on Carrie Underwood in a minute!
The commencement was a top-to-bottom farce, more aligned with the definitions of entertainment in the classic Schwartz and Dietz song “That’s Entertainment!” than genuine amusement. The clown with his pants falling down? Check. The scene where the villain is mean? Check. If those things are entertainment, Donald Trump’s second inauguration was right on the money.
The drama kicked off early Monday morning with Melania Trump, ever dedicated to being a Christmas-hating cartoon villain, arriving at the customary inauguration day church ceremony dressed as the Hamburglar. Her ensemble featured a wide-brimmed hat and a long navy coat, which she kept on for the inauguration hours later. While being escorted into the ceremony in the Capitol, eyes hidden behind her hat and coat buttoned up, she was a dead-ringer for H.G. Wells’ Invisible Man. Fitting, given that anything more than one foot in front of her would be invisible beneath the shadow of her cockamamie chapeau.
But a hat was ultimately appropriate, given the temperature outside. It was the coldest inauguration day in 45 years, meaning that the planned outdoor ceremony had to be scrapped and moved inside of the Capitol’s rotunda, which holds considerably fewer people. The parade that followed the inauguration was moved indoors too, teased earlier in the day by a whole host of guests dressed like band leaders and circus ringmasters. It was a carnival of outwear that could only be matched by typing “Rococo” into the Amazon search bar. Everywhere the camera pointed inside the rotunda, a new “most fugly jacket I’ve ever seen” appeared. This made for a fun sort of “I Spy” game to rattle my brain awake as the coffee hit. I spy with my little eye . . . generic brand Stevie Nicks! Oh, never mind, that’s just billionaire Miriam Adelson, dressed like John Lennon if he were the Ghost of Christmas Past. Elsewhere, a woman arrived in what I can only assume was her first communion dress, let out by her tailor so she could go to a fancy event for the second time in her life.
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Ivanka Trump opted for a Kelly green coat and hat combo to rival her mother-in-law, which immediately drew comparisons to Yvonne Strahovski’s character in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” I tend to think that we’ve run our course in likening the Trump administration to the dystopia depicted in Margaret Atwood’s story, so I will simply commend her for fashioning a glop of paint from an artist’s easel onto her dome. Outside the rotunda, Jake and Logan Paul — two former YouTubers pretending to be professional boxers — posed for a photo with New York’s mayor, Eric Adams. Standing nearby was a man whose hairline was desperately trying to escape his head, yet somehow, he was still rocking a ponytail, fighting for its life. It’s always comforting when people who look like they sell fake acid in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show have a front-row seat to America’s peaceful transfer of power.
But my favorite outfit spoke to this particular inauguration day’s loose, playful spirit. It was courtesy of Jeff Bezos’ fiancée Lauren Sánchez, who wore an all-white blazer and slacks ensemble, sporting only a lacy bra underneath her jacket. Nothing says “fresh start” like a little shoulder boulder cleavage, which Mark Zuckerberg seemed to agree with. Zuckerberg leered at Sánchez’s chest like a horny ghoul, which was the moment that signaled the biggest change on the horizon for America, given that Zuckerberg is normally just a garden-variety ghoul. Who knew there was so much nuance behind those beady eyes?
With so much disorganized majesty happening in the arrival portion of the ceremony, one might think that the actual swearing-in portion of the morning would be a nonevent in comparison. Wrong you’d be! Though the room was filled with children who made a wish to be an adult for one day, the proceedings weren’t even close to mature. Shots of the antsy crowd, interspersed with glimpses of Trump’s motorcade swerving between lanes on its way to the Capitol, portended an equally jumbled inauguration. Driving down the middle of the road is an unfortunate allegory for having a president who simply does whatever he likes. But, of course, Trump was not driving. He’s too old to do that safely, so it’s a good thing we’ve got him running a country.
When he finally did arrive, he was greeted by the dulcet sounds of Long Island’s finest tenor, Christopher D. Macchio, looking like he was still a little ruddy from the Sunday dinner gravy as he belted out “O, America!” Carrie Underwood was scheduled to follow Macchio, but the ceremony was running behind, so her slot had to be bumped back — tough for someone who basically risked their career longevity and status as a gay icon to preach unity for a big fat check. Residuals don’t last forever, and I guess now that everyone’s polyamorous and in open relationships, there’s not much need for the sweet catharsis of “Before He Cheats” anymore.
No one in attendance was sporting s**t-eating grins or rubbing their palms together malevolently, they just looked dopey and uncool. This awful miscarriage of power, this dark day in American history, seemed utterly silly.
In all seriousness, it’s critical to acknowledge Underwood’s decision to sing at the inauguration, and it signals an important, if terrifying, turn in how celebrities are approaching Trump’s second term. And now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we can go back to laughing at Underwood’s torrent of technical difficulties in what was supposed to be her big, unifying moment. Thank goodness, just when I was beginning to worry that famous people have become exempt from karma’s fickle wrath.
After Trump’s lengthy speech, in which he promised to do things both silly and scary, Underwood prepared for her moment in the sun. (Well, away from the sun, in the rotunda, forced to perform in a far less grand manner than Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé did at past inaugurations, but who’s keeping track?) Everyone held their breath, waiting for Underwood’s music to begin. Instead, the backing track squawked for a second and then dead air filled the room, with nary a patriotic chord to be heard. Minutes passed and things only became more awkward, leading Underwood to mouth, “I can just sing it.” She encouraged everyone in the room to participate as she sang “America the Beautiful” entirely a cappella. It was her “Mean Girls” holiday talent show moment, and what a fitting metaphor: A woman who was once thought to be good, forced to compete for attention from those in power as she gives into the conniving evils of the influential people around her.
After what felt like hours, the ceremony finally, blessedly finished. Sitting there, having managed to endure the start to another four long years, I felt neither invigorated nor helpless. Rather, I felt numb, almost apathetic. When Trump approached the podium for his lengthy speech, he too seemed indifferent. He threw his arms up and shrugged, as if to say, “Well, here we go again!” The entire inauguration felt cyclical almost to the point of comedy. We’re back at square one, but the proceedings are even less serious than they were before. Instead of simply cowering with fear of the unknown, we have Trump’s promise to put the American flag on Mars — as if that matters to literally anyone — with the help of Elon Musk and his other billionaire backers like Bezos and Zuckerberg. The trio even witnessed the inanity of the inauguration firsthand, while ticketed supporters were left in the cold. (Some hero for the working class we’ve got here.)
No one in attendance was sporting s**t-eating grins or rubbing their palms together malevolently, they just looked dopey and uncool. This awful miscarriage of power, this dark, dark day in American history, for which every Men’s Wearhouse and Talbots within 50 miles of Washington D.C. was bought out, just seemed . . . utterly silly. It’s like Donald Trump is Road Runner and the rest of us are Wile E. Coyote, trying again and again to rid this man from politics. At least, if the inauguration gave us one thing, it’s confirmation that the conservative party is completely aware that we’re all stuck in this episode of “Looney Tunes.” That does, however, make it all the more difficult to look at America and resist the temptation to give one last stammering cry of, “That’s all folks!”
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