Cover image courtesy of Mike Segar, Reuters.
Editor note: Well uhh this was supposed to be done ALOT sooner, but better late than never I guess? But thank’s to my terminal case of procrastination, it took a bit to get this out, but I am glad it is finally done to a point where I am somewhat proud of it.
impartial /ĭm-pär′shəl/ adjective
- Not partial or biased; unprejudiced. synonym: fair.
- Not partial; not favoring one more than another; treating all alike; unprejudiced; unbiased; disinterested; equitable; fair; just.
- Treating all parties, rivals, or disputants equally; not partial; not biased; fair.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
One of the fun parts about living in Burger Land is experiencing the presidential system. I have always been fascinated by the idea of a leader who is democratically elected and serves up to two four-year terms. Russia should really look into that sometime.
This weekend, my father and I made the quadrennial pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., to see the inauguration and peaceful transfer of power. This marks my third inauguration since 2017, when I was there to see President Donald Trump get elected for the first time. Since I was younger, I only remember a few things: I was cold, it was boring, and the pizza I had was pretty great.
I came again in 2021 when it was a lot harder to get close because of COVID-19 restrictions, but we managed to get a room at the Hotel Washington. Security was higher than ever after the attacks on the capital just a few weeks earlier. Since the hotel was only one block away from the White House and on the presidential parade route, we had to get special permission from the police to go behind the infamous black fences to access our hotel. Even getting into our hotel required passing two security checkpoints operated by Homeland Security. When it came time for the parade, we had the best view since our room faced the route, so we could see the motorcade pass by. A few minutes before it started, we had a knock on the hotel room door from an FBI agent instructing us to stay away from the windows as a security measure. Due to past experiences with presidents and motorcades, they did not want a repeat. Despite the city feeling like a prison, it was still fun, and I had a great time. We managed to see everything that was open then.
Hotel Washington at 515 15th St NW, mapping provided by Yandex
Skip ahead to 2024. The election had just ended with Donald Trump winning. We had really debated whether we should go, but we had decided it was history, and this would be Trump’s last inauguration, so we would never have to deal with this person again.
In total, we were in Washington for 3 days, so I hate to be like a cringeworthy YouTube content creator, but we will take this day by day.
Day One: Meeting friends
On Friday, the 17th, we drove up to Washington, D.C. Since we had arrived pretty late, I would not count this day, but on the morning of the 18th, that was our first full day in Washington.
It was no surprise that the infamous black fences were up all around Washington once again. We visited the Senate buildings to visit political figures and say hello.
Do I like my state senators? Duck no! We have one of them that voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires states and the federal government to recognize the validity of same-sex and interracial marriages in 2022 and objected to the certification of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election. Our other senator opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest when the life of the mother is in danger and voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the January 6th attack on the capital. You know, typical republican behaviors. Regardless of their politics, it was pretty nice meeting one of them in person. It made them feel much more human and not just another name that makes decisions on the hill.
We spent the rest of the day meeting with various people who were also in town at the time.
Oh yeah, and Trump launched his own official cryptocurrency named OFFICIAL TRUMP: The Hill. What a time to be alive.
Day Two: The fun begins
Today would be when the real crowd comes. Trump will host his last rally before becoming president in the Capital One Arena. We went over at 10:00 to see how the situation at the lines was. To say it was long would be an understatement. For context, the total capacity for the arena is a little more than 20,000. The mile to get in at 10 was well over a mile long. I spoke with one of the members of security there ahd this is what he said:
I know the capacity at the arena is 20,000 something, and I know for a fact that there are more than that waiting in line. Maybe up to 50,000 people waiting currently, and this is already hours before doors open. The numbers are not numbering.
Haha funny. While that was happening, I had seen a tweet that I thought was pretty funny:
This is the line for Trump’s rally today in DC. Weather forecasters predicted a complete whiteout and they weren’t wrong. I’ve seen more pigment on wedding gowns.
Twitter post by Carlos Turnbull @cturnbull1968 | Xcancel.com
Twitter never fails to deliver
We then toured the Senate office buildings once more, meeting various political figures. That night, Trump and his friends were having a candlelight dinner at the National Building Museum. We tried getting as close as possible, and we got within 300 feet of the building.
We then walked around the arena more to see what everyone was doing at 21:00. Here are a few photos of the environment there.
Photo Gallery
This section of the line is right before the first security checkpoint. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library is on the right, and the camera faces west on G Street.
This section of the line is right before the first security checkpoint. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library is on the left, and the camera faces east on G Street. The white tent seen uphead is the security checkpoint. The blue tarp tent is a group of supporters camping out for the night to be the first ones in. Mind you, the temperatures that night were as low as 27°F (-2°C). Not pictured is another group of people sleeping under the awning of the library, disregarding the sign that told them not to.
Behind the security checkpoint barriers, there are 20 lanes to handle the crowds. This is on the corner of G and 9th Street. To protect their privacy, the faces of the individuals have been blurred out.
The intersection at E and 5th Street has been barricaded due to its proximity to the National Building Museum, where the president-elect was at the time. The faces of the individuals have been blurred out to protect their privacy.
Police officers watch football in their car. I will gladly join the watch party.
Make America Great Again Victory Rally
On the night before his inauguration, Trump hosted his “Victory Rally”, you know, the one with lines out of the whazoo? Because of space constraints, I could not attend it in person, but I watched the recording. Now, I will not do the job of fact-checker, but there are so many other great sources for checking. I am personally a member of PolitiFact and Snopes, two great places to get information. But I did want to highlight some of the more interesting lines he said. Just note that most of the claims here are either mostly false or completely false. Please do your own research on each claim before you share it presenting it as fact.
- “Jails, prisons, mental institutions, gangs being emptied right through that ugly, open border.”
- “We won the youth vote by 36 points, so I like TikTok,”
- “I said it’s gone through the roof, and then he goes, ‘I disagree with that’, The next day, they announced the crime was up like 40%.”
- “Once and for all, we’re going to end the reign of a failed and corrupt political establishment in Washington, a failed administration. We’re not going to take it anymore,”
- “We’re going to bring back law and order to our cities. We’re going to restore patriotism to our schools, get radical left woke ideologies the hell out of our military and out of our government. And we are going to make America great again.”
- “Somebody said yesterday, ‘Sir, don’t sign so many in one day. Let’s do it over a period of weeks.’ I said, ‘Like hell we’re going to do it over weeks. We’re going to sign them at the beginning.’”
- “Tomorrow, everybody in this very large arena will be very happy with my decision on the J6 hostages. Very happy. I think you’ll be very, very happy. I would say about 99.9% in this beautiful arena,”
- There was also that moment when Elon Musk and his son X (Yes, that is his legal name. Yes, Elon addresses him as “little X”) were invited up to the stage. In classic Elon fashion, he was as awkward as anything on stage.
- On the topic of guest appearances, JD Vance was nowhere to be seen. Anyway, back to quotes. “We will teach our children to love our country to honor our history and to always respect our great American flag and we will get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our schools.”
- “I will direct our military to begin construction of the great iron dome missile defense shield which will all be made in the USA” What even is that??
- The whole “get wokeness the hell out of our military,” which was then followed up by one of the most random videos ever made. View it here: youtube.com/live/ZkRHFQaX-sM?t=10751s. If you did not know, they used clips from the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, which is an interesting watch to say the least.
Day Three: The Inauguration
Finally, the main event. This was pretty uneventful, and Trump mostly repeated the same things he said at the rally. Due to the cold, the inauguration was moved inside the Capitol Building, so we stayed in the hotel to watch the coverage on TV. There was much that happened, but the biggest thing, as someone who is deep into tech, seeing many Big Tech CEOs in the audience is a sign of how this future administration will run.
Anyone want to guess how much total net worth is in this photo?
Conclusion
This is going to be an interesting four years. Normally, I would say something inspirational, but there is not really anything to say besides, well, that happened. At least I can say I gave the other side a fair chance.
Cya, and have a nice day.