I will not be planted in front of the TV on Inauguration Day as I usually am, marinating in the pomp and circumstance, all those arriving dignitaries — Democrats and Republicans alike, Supreme Court justices, former presidents, and finally the President and the President-Elect and their spouses. The event is traditionally portrayed as the peaceful transfer of power, proof that the United States remains a model of democracy for all the world to admire and emulate.
I told my brother that I wasn’t going to watch the spectacle and, without hesitation, he said that he wasn’t either. That shouldn’t have come as a surprise. And it didn’t come as a surprise. What did, a little, was the alacrity of his response. He’s no textbook liberal the way I am, though I’d like to think that I’m not wedded to any orthodoxy and capable of thinking for myself. I find MSNBC almost as exhausting as Fox News.
But he’s a conservative. He’s written for right wing intellectual journals such as Commentary and the New Criterion. He’s supped at William F. Buckley’s dinner table. I won’t praise our parents for instilling good values in their children; by osmosis, perhaps. They were too busy doing other things. Yet one message we got loud and clear was never to let anybody play you for a sucker.
Before the first time he swore allegiance to the Constitution with his fingers crossed behind his back, I would have been tempted to say that conartistry was the incoming commander-in-chief’s greatest gift. But this time it’s on us. He tried violently to overturn a free and fair election four years ago. What more do you need to know? If that’s not disqualifying what is? And had he lost this time is there any doubt that he would have contested the most recent election, too?
The Democratic party is supposed to take themselves to the wood shed, engage in soul searching, try to figure out how it lost the American people. There are lots of explanations for what went wrong. They faced headwinds that were buffeting liberal democracies around the globe. It boiled down to the price of groceries; it’s hard to praise the flag when you can’t afford to feed your family.
I get that. But Donald Trump staged a coup. Did I already mention that? I didn’t ask my brother why he wasn’t going to watch the Inauguration. I didn’t need to. There are certain truths that we hold to be self-evident — I’ve always loved that line — that all men are created equal, that they’re endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; and I suppose that includes the blessings of liberty to squander those rights by participating in the peaceful transfer of power from a democracy to an autocracy; or if you want to be more precise about it, a budding oligarchy.
I’ve tried to understand why I, a political junkie — I’m the kind of guy who wrote fevered political op-eds for my college newspaper that nobody read — will be turning away from the screen on Monday at noon. I’ve been searching for an analogy and the best that I can come up with is when news programs show horrific footage of somebody getting thrown on the subway tracks or an assassin stalking a health insurance executive and the camera cuts out a split second before he pulls the trigger.
Democracy, it turns out, doesn’t die in darkness. It can also die in the bright sunlight of a Washington, D.C. winter. Hopefully, I’m wrong. But if there’s one arena where Donald Trump is often underestimated and consistently overperforms it’s his ability to shock the conscience. His smash mouth nominees for high government office are living proof.
But the President-Elect and I have opportunities for agreement. I readily acknowledge that the American people, at least the majority of them, have given him the green light to go for broke. They can no longe blame him alone for his behavior. The recent election proved that he has seventy-seven million enablers.
So what will I be doing at noon on Inauguration Day? I plan on taking a walk in the woods. Nature has a way of putting in things in perspective. And by perspective I don’t necessarily mean making things feel less bad than your intellect tells you they are. I mean by putting things in a larger context. We’re a deeply flawed species and perhaps can’t handle the responsibility for managing this magnificent planet. I once bought into the notion that we were perfectible. Or at least capable of heading in the right direction. I’m no longer so sure. Perhaps it’s time to step aside and let the bots see if they can do a better job.
But the virtue of Donald Trump is that there's no amount of success that will allow him to find succor. He can’t take the win. He’ll always be dissatisfied. He’s already planting the seeds for his opposition to rebound. He’s validated by his enemies. If not the Inauguration I’m planning to watch those confirmation hearings. I’m counting on them making riveting TV.
Ralph Gardner Junior is a journalist who divides his time between New York City and Columbia County. More of his work can be found in the Berkshire Eagle and on Substack.
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