It was 17 degrees on January 20, 1961, the day John F. Kennedy was inaugurated. There had been snow the night before and six to ten inches still lay on the sidewalks on Pennsylvania Avenue as work crews shoveled away. Along with several of my buddies from our Boy Scout troop in Arlington, Virginia, I reported for duty as an usher for the inauguration at 7 am.
It was a clear sunny day, but bitterly cold. I remember all of us stomping our feet in the snow on the sidewalks trying to get them warm. It would be at least three hours before anyone showed up that needed to be ushered to their seats. I can’t imagine what we did all that time. Being Boy Scouts, we probably contemplated building a fire. It was one of our merit badges: Fire-building. But that didn’t happen. Maybe we helped shovel snow? Can’t remember.
When the new, young President and his lovely wife eventually rode by at about noon, in an open convertible, he had created a bit of a sensation by going hatless. In the inaugural parade that followed there were college and high school bands from across the country, military units marching in formation, floats (one that looked like a submarine and which shot out 8-inch Styrofoam Polaris missiles), and foreign heads of state. Late in the day, at the very end of the parade, came the state governors one by one, each in a open convertible of their own.
By that time, maybe 4 in the afternoon, shadows were lengthening and the stands were empty. We were bored and decided to have some fun at the expense of the governors. Noting their names on the side of their cars. We would do a 1-2-3 then, in unison, shout out their first name, “Ted!” “Ralph!” They would jerk in our direction, hoping for friendly face, but seeing a gaggle of laughing adolescents.
I’m unsure whether I will watch Donald Trump’s inauguration tomorrow. One reason to watch is the word at the heart of the word “inauguration” — “augury.” It means, the practice of predicting the future based on omens or signs. It sounds primitive and magical, and kind of fun.
Will the events of the inauguration “augur” something of the four years ahead? Will Musk and Bannon get into a shoving match on the dais? Will a single dark cloud move over the capitol at a crucial moment? Will Pete Hegseth have too much to drink and make a pass at Melania? Or might holding the inauguration inside (because of the cold, we’re told) be some sort of omen itself?
I’ll return to historian Gary Gerstle and his book, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, for another sort of augury. While noting that Donald Trump can shape-shift with the best of them, Gerstle also identifies three beliefs to which Trump has held steadfastly since the 1980s. I’ll be quoting Gerstle here.
First, Trump “never embraced the neoliberal promise of a world without borders, in which peoples and goods would move easily from country to country. He did not believe in the virtues of free trade.” Amid the internationalism and globalism of the neoliberal order, Trump remained a nationalist, who preferred bi-lateral agreements made by deal-makers (like himself). Hence, “America first.” Here a question might be: Will a go-it-alone approach work with China, Iran, or Russia? Really every other President since World War II has worked hard at alliances.
Second, “Trump had always been an ethnonationalist who believed that America’s destiny was to be a white man’s country.” Trump has never been a celebrant of multiculturalism or diversity. I wonder, however, if the growth of support for Trump among Latinos, African-Americans, and those of Asian heritage will mute or temper this belief? To the surprise of many the Republican party now has a legitimate claim to be a multi-racial party.
The third leg on Trump’s stool is his anti-elite bias. “Trump’s third long-standing belief was, in some respects, the most surprising one to find in a New York City billionaire: that America’s good, white people had to take the country back from a cosmopolitan elite intent on selling it out.” Hence, his affinity for Big Macs, WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), Harley-Davidsons, and an aggressive masculinity — all designed to poke a finger in the eye of the Manhattan and Ivy League elites that had snubbed him. A question here — Will Trump’s policies actually benefit the non-elite, working-class or will he simply give them stylistic and symbolic satisfactions of the “own-the-libs” variety?
On November 23, 1963 I again stood on Pennsylvania Avenue. After two friends and I delivered our Washington Post newspaper routes at 5:30, we headed for downtown. Again, we were early, though it was not as cold as it had been on January 20, 1961. As early birds, we stood front row. Eventually, it was 50 deep behind us. I don’t know what time the horse-drawn caisson bearing John F. Kennedy’s body went by on its way to the nation’s capitol. I do remember the sounds, or really lack of sounds. Only the clop of the horses hooves and a solemn drumbeat. Less than three years after his inauguration, Kennedy was gone.
As we now try to conjure what the future has in store in a second Trump presidency, one thing is sure. We don’t know, not really. There will be events that no one today can either foresee or imagine. May God have mercy upon us all.
