Left out in the cold

On January 20, 1961, 8 inches of snow lay on the ground in Washington. On that date, John F Kennedy delivered one of historyโs most memorable inaugural addresses. As he put it back then, โโฆ the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace…โ In his most famous and off-quoted line from that speech he concluded by saying in part, โAnd so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.โ You could see his breath as he spoke those lines. The temperature was 22 degrees Fahrenheit (-5.5 degrees Celsius.)
Today, as I write this in the early hours of January 20, Donald Trump will disgrace the office of the presidency and defy the specific proscription of the Constitution by taking the same oath of office Kennedy took. He will do so inside the rotunda of the Capitol Building, the same place he unleashed an unruly mob of gangsters and hooligans to murderously attack police officers and destroy property. Trump and his team have decreed that it will be too cold to conduct the ceremony outside. The temperature is expected to be about 25 degrees Fahrenheit, 3 degrees warmer than the Kennedy inauguration.
Trump will be surrounded by billionaires and sycophants and his privileged cabal of thugs. Ordinary Trump idolaters who travelled from the four corners of the country to the nationโs capital will be left out in the cold. This time it will be an inauguration exclusively for the privileged few. Trump wonโt say it in so many words, but he might as well say: โAsk not what I can do for you, ask what you can do for me.โ
Itโs a perfect metaphor for his entire administration. Trump has evicted his ordinary MAGA followers and made room for his inner circle. Everyday citizens who scraped together enough money to go there will be bumped for people who will arrive in limos that picked them up from their private jets.
Moreover, this time Trump can avoid the embarrassment of an inauguration that will be poorly attended, or might be attended by jeering crowds voicing their hatred and frustration. Previously, on Saturday, an enormous ocean of humans, an ocean that rivalled the number of men and women who attended Dr Martin Luther Kingโs โI have a dream speechโ more than 62 years ago, came to protest Trump and reassert their identities and their freedoms.
In fact, Trump has drastically scaled back the size of everything to do with the inauguration. It turns out that the cheaper the staging of the event, the more of the nearly $200 million he raised for it he can keep. Trump wants to be president again so he can enrich his pockets and his ego. End of story.
I have no pity to spare for the MAGA fools who raided the cookie jar so they could come to see their toad-god lie about preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution. One in particular I find frankly hilarious. In September, in response to someone commenting on how much better the economy was, she tweeted: โWhat f*cking planet do you live on????? We canโt afford eggs, you idiot.โ Then yesterday she tweeted, โโฆ my mom and I spent thousands of dollars to be here.โ Not bad for someone who couldnโt afford eggs in September.
JFK, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton all staged their inaugurations outside in freezing cold weather. Itโs Washington DC, for crying out loud! In January! What do you expect? Especially those among you who support the idiotic conspiracy theory that global warming is a hoax? Funny how people who have so long accused us of being snowflakes canโt abide the idea of โฆ snowflakes.
Theyโre not missing anything, apart from the lies of a little man with feelings for nothing or no one apart from his imaginary greatness, a braggart and a grifter who couldnโt care less if America lives or dies. Heโll stand behind the seal of the president of the United States and tell his lies, and the sane among us will wonder again how this could ever happen.
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Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.