13

Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

Kathleen “Red” Kiersay got off the elevator and entered the Washington Bureau of the New York Record. It had been a long day already, and it was really just getting started, with several Inaugural Balls for her to cover. But it was time to file her story on the Inauguration, the speech, the crowd, and the protests. So many people, she thought to herself, considered coming into the office a burden. For her, as for most reporters, she thought, the office was a respite from the relentless samsara of the outside world. She thought of her office as a haven in a raging sea. Especially after several months of not being able to come in because of the work-from-home rule. She remembered the old saying, “No one ever said on their deathbed that they wished they had spent more time at the office.” After the last year, she thought, to hell with that.

As she entered her haven, she hung her coat on a hanger behind the door, dumped her computer bag on the desk, and squirted sanitizer on her hands. It was time to give the tri-state area, the rest of “elite” America, and the developed world the official account of what exactly had happened outside the Capitol building.

Headlines were above her pay grade, so she toyed with various ledes. “Lede” was how it was spelled at the Record, and so the rest of the elite press spelled it that way, too. Even some people at Wolf News used that spelling, those who maintained pretensions to “real journalism.” Most of the few gainfully employed journalists that were left in “flyover country,” where she originally came from, spelled it “lead,” as in “bury the lead.” She mused inwardly that if she ever amassed sufficient power within the Record, she might one day officially change it back to the “real American” spelling. But that day was far in the future, and for now, she knew, she had better stick to time-sanctified idiosyncrasies.

So… the “lede.”

Protests marred the second Inaugural of the President… no, that was too inflammatory.

A somewhat weather- and virus-diminished crowd greeted the President as he took the oath of office for his second term… no, that seemed somehow weak.

She sat back, took a breath, and let fly. Third time’s the charm.

Gray skies and clouds marked the second swearing-in of the President today, perhaps befitting the nation’s most controversial and divisive leader ever. The fact that the ceremony took place at all was protested by those who pointed out that the President has not even been confirmed as the winner of the presidency after an almost unprecedented apparent 269-269 Electoral College tie and other disputes over electors. Disputed results in some midwestern and southern Congressional races resulted in the House of Representatives, which is constitutionally stipulated to resolve any tie, not being able to arrange a vote by state, as prescribed by the Constitution. Swing states sent rival sets of electors to the capital, throwing the certification of the result into further chaos. Unlike in 2000, when the Democrat ceded the election to the Republican after a month of legal wrangling and an ongoing recount in the State of Florida, neither side was willing to concede in 2020. But very much as in 2000, a conservative-majority Supreme Court stepped in and rendered a one-off decision, not meant to apply to any future case, and the result was a Republican candidate being declared the winner. Democratic leaders have refused to recognize the re-election of the President, but without clear results in Congressional races to preempt the Supreme Court’s ruling, the Inauguration went forward. The Democratic candidate, intent on taking the oath himself, was turned away by Capitol security for refusing to take his seat as a guest; no previous presidents attended the event.

Democrats point out that this time their candidate won the popular vote by an even larger margin than in 2016, despite a late surge in sympathy votes for the ailing President. Republicans correctly reply that the popular vote has no relevance in the American presidential election system, and perhaps less correctly add that they are certain that vote fraud is responsible for the entirety of the popular margin.

“PERHAPS less correctly?” she could hear her usual liberal critics screeching. Some days she could write her own Tooter mentions in advance. Get a life, she thought.

Democrats, in turn, pointed to accelerated, what they have called “desperate and frantic,” efforts in 2020 on the part of Republicans to suppress the vote in several key battleground states and all across the South and Midwest, which they said included “obviously targeted phony health scares,” taking advantage of resurgent virus outbreaks, the existence of which the administration hotly denies. They also pointed out that early voting and voting by mail had been fought tooth and nail by Republicans, some of whom, even including the President, openly admitted that higher turnout would hurt Republicans’ chances. Republicans respond by calling Democrats “sore losers” and hailing the President’s recovery from the virus. Russian and/or other interference in the election may have been at least as effective as in 2016, but there is no official way to compare the two, because even after Republicans in Congress failed to block the appropriation of funds to study the issue, the administration simply did not spend the money that had been allocated to combat the problem. The Carter Center denounced the election as “irretrievably discredited,” “rife with foreign tampering and completely uncontrolled dark money, possibly from other countries,” and “grossly undemocratic and worthy of third world dictatorships,” and even some moderate Democrats who previously called such rhetoric “extreme” have been outraged by what they say were clear Republican attempts to use the threat of the virus to “steal” elections.

Democrats also pointed to what they called “abuse of power” on the part of the Attorney General, who ordered the Director of the FBI to hold regular press conferences about ongoing investigations into the Democratic presidential nominee and his son all through the campaign, and also to give the press regular updates on investigations into the 2017-2019 Special Counsel probe into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, and into potential involvement on the part of the President’s 2016 campaign in that interference. The Attorney General had previously announced that the United States government was dropping all charges against the Russians who had been indicted by the Special Counsel’s office. The only people who are left unpardoned and/or in jail as a result of the Special Counsel’s probe are those who cooperated with the Office of Special Counsel against the President’s wishes. All others have been pardoned, had their sentences commuted, or had any pending charges dropped.

The Democratic National Committee, in a press release this morning, said: “It is a national shame and scandal that this Inauguration has been allowed to proceed before the outcome of this manifestly flawed and corrupted election has even been determined. We refuse to acknowledge this empty ritual, nor do we concede this race. Because of the 2010 Citizens United decision which opened the floodgates for outside dark money; further similar court decisions that blinded our authorities from ensuring that foreign money was not perverting our sacred elections; open disruption of polling places in Democratic-majority districts; and the crudely partisan court decisions that forced Democrats and minorities to choose between endangering our health by exercising our sacred right to vote, or simply allowing Republicans to steal our elections, we may only find out in the distant future whether our people were allowed to choose their leaders freely in 2020 – or even 2016!, or whether they have had them chosen for them by malevolent outside forces, aided and abetted by crooked Republican politicians and partisan Republican judges who have put their own short-term political interests above our beloved nation.”

Democrats and others have been further enraged by the President’s further pre-emptive pardons, just after the election but before the Supreme Court had ruled, of virtually his entire administration, including every campaign staff member that had been languishing in prison (with the exception of anyone who had meaningfully cooperated with prosecutors), and most provocatively, practically his entire family. In addition, there have been several shootings of migrants trying to cross the Mexican-United States border; the President pardoned the officers involved in these cases as well, saying that they were simply trying to protect Americans from infection by “diseased outsiders.”

On top of all of these contentious issues, of course, hovered the radical dislocation of the virus outbreak and the profound economic shock it caused, and the security restrictions put in place for the event for the pandemic. This was the explosive context for the President’s second Inauguration.

The President’s speech began with a brief appeal for national unity, and thanks to his supporters for their sympathy during his and his wife’s recent illnesses, but quickly transitioned into heated rhetoric that belied that opening. He accused the Democratic opposition of “stealing” his first term, “using tactics better known in Nazi Germany to undermine and cancel a democratic election,” and of refusing to abide by “the lawful rulings of the courts.” He then turned to the role of the press. “Never have so many fake journalists been so closely aligned with one political party and its lawless abuse of the impeachment power,” he stated, to jeers from his supporters. “These hoaxes will no longer be tolerated in this, my first real term. They even claimed my illness was fake. I intend to use all the power of my office and all our legal and law enforcement might to fight against these un-American socialist sore losers and their anti-gun, anti-family, anti-fetus, anti-God, anti-American, pro-virus agenda. We have made America great again [long pause for cheers from supporters], and now we will make her even greater than she is now.”

There were reports of mass arrests of protesters by masked federal officers without insignia, outside of the ticketed security area, within which the President’s supporters were mainly contained. Weapons were not allowed within this enclosed area, public health officials took temperatures of those entering, and “MK” medallions were required for entry, but masks were notably absent within, and thousands more of the President’s unmasked supporters were armed and watching from just outside the ticketed area. Many of the armed supporters of the President sported “Boogaloo”-themed Hawaiian shirts, an emblem of a movement said to be devoted to starting a second Civil War.

“QAnon” supporters were also armed and in evidence; a number of the “Boogaloo” and “QAnon” supporters were accused by protesters against the President of aiming their weapons at them and threatening them, actions protesters said were ignored by Inaugural security staff, who they claimed seemed focused only on arresting, beating, or gassing unarmed peaceful protesters against the President.

A few protesters who managed to obtain tickets and briefly unfurled a banner saying “Re–Impeach the President” were removed from the secure area, after several of them seemed to have been beaten by some of the President’s fans. The President seemed to take cognizance of this during his speech, when he departed from the text of his speech that had been distributed to the press to say, “That’s the way, hit them! We must have zero tolerance for disorder and anti-American activity. If you cannot deal with our fair and square victory, you should move to Canada or Mexico. We can finally build that wall, and this time, no more fooling around, we WILL lock them up, believe me. And this will just be the beginning of pardons for real Americans who have fallen afoul of crooked rigged justice just for trying to keep this country great again.” This statement was followed by a long series of chants of “Shoot Them Down,” apparently a reference to the recent shootings of migrants at the border.

A “2021 Poor People’s March” led by Black Lives Matter was also in attendance outside the ticketed area, though they made up a far smaller component of the crowd. They consisted mostly of local demonstrators protesting police killings of African-Americans, federal law enforcement “invasions” of Democratic cities, as well as what they say was unfair distribution of food relief to the suddenly unemployed masses across America last year. One popular sign among this crowd was “STOP THE PRESIDENT’S WAR ON THE BLUE STATES.” Hopes for a larger “Poor People’s” demonstration seem to have been dashed by the inability of out-of-area protesters to pay for transportation, as well as fears of reportedly resurgent virus outbreaks. Still, police said the protest was vigorous enough to require a brief “crowd control response,” with tear gas and baton charges.

Though the vast majority of other protesters were peaceful, several groups of black-clad self-described “Antifa” protesters clashed with some of the more extreme supporters of the President, but seemed more intent on breaking shop windows, looting, and setting fires. Some injuries and at least two deaths were reported. “These people do not represent us,” a leader of the Women’s March said. “We don’t know who they are and we do not condone their actions.” The President’s campaign manager, in a statement released after the Inauguration speech, wrote: “This violence is the direct result of the hatred of all Democrats for this great President. They have tried to take him down from even before his first term, they welcomed and seem to have exacerbated the economic devastation of the overblown, exaggerated virus upon our people and economy, and now that they have failed so utterly, they resort to disorder and violence, which will not go unpunished. The ties between Democratic leadership and this hateful deadly violence cannot be hidden forever. They have gone low, and we will go high, taking America to greater and greater heights. Keep America Great Again!”

Tonight, the President will attend several Inaugural balls, including one that critics accuse of being organized by an extremist white supremacist group of self-described “Doorknob Lickers” who have been accused of deliberately infecting themselves and others with the virus in order to create a cadre of “invincible warriors” for the President. The President has dismissed such criticisms, saying, “I’m not going to apologize for my supporters to these people who have been trying to throw me out of office for more than four years. They are diseased crooks and socialists. I will be celebrating with the real Americans.” Observers will be watching to see whether attendees extend the fascist salute to the President and shout “Hail the President, Hail Victory,” as they did in a celebration after the 2016 election, and as increasing numbers have done at the President’s many campaign rallies starting in mid-2020.

The inauguration, despite its imperfections and the protests, marks yet another victory of the President over his Democratic opposition. From the inconclusive Russia investigation, through his exoneration by the Senate in what many see as a pointless impeachment and trial, through his much-criticized but not universally unpopular handling of the virus and the Black Lives Matter protests, to his apparent victory in the election and the stamp of approval handed to him by the Supreme Court (four members of which he will have picked, since the relatively sudden deaths of two Democrat-appointed justices in the past few months), the President’s grip over the nation has been relentlessly consolidated, and according to some polls, for the first time since he was elected in 2016, a majority of this disease- and strife-ridden nation seems, if only out of exhaustion, to have accepted this state of affairs, and to be in a mood to move on.

Kathleen reread the copy, imagined, with some satisfaction, the reactions of the haters on both sides, and hit “Send.”

 

© 2020 Nolan O’Brian