It is usually stupid to take pictures in church. But at St. John’s Episcopal Church across quiet Lafayette Square from the White House, photography has become inevitable at least once every four years. Every Inauguration Day, many of the most powerful representatives of the US government, who quickly enrolled in college, go to the so-called Presidents’ Chapel, theoretically to pray. The intimate retreat, with its contemplative atmosphere, is, in this way, a small part of the theater of American continuity. Presidential administrations, often widely divergent from each other in tone and political direction, are chained by this simple nod toward God.
Going back to 2020, a long time ago politically, but just yesterday when you think about it, the air outside that church was filled with tear gas. Forces that have been deployed before Donald TrumpA crowd of people gathered in the square to protest police brutality were repulsed. Trump needed space to stand in front of the church marquee and hold up a Bible: Photo Full of symbols over which Trump—a product of the spectacle, yes, but rarely one with deep meaning—had no interest in exercising control. He just wanted a picture.
On Monday morning, just before his inauguration, Trump returned inside the church, reveling in its ceremonial power in exchange for a few more drops of self-aggrandizement. There were images from the benches, most notably a group of tech giants who followed Trump around, from Mar-a-Lago to D.C., throwing laurel at his feet and offering him sacrificial gestures. They all want to be seen wanting him to succeed. They have come a long way from their species’ original status as benign geniuses who wanted to bring peace, love, and interconnectedness to the world one byte or bit of binary code at a time. These are the people who used to use Gandhi’s image in television advertisements for personal computers. Perhaps this is their final encounter with Trump: they all hope someone notices They are Christ, not the man bleeding there on the cross.
No one seemed particularly religious; It would be silly to expect that. Mark Zuckerberg’s frizzy hair and empty sides can be seen, as can Jeff Bezos’s gleaming face, which is every time fuller and wetter than it was the last time you saw him. A few rows ahead of the techies was “comedian” and podcaster Joe Rogan, who used to pretend he was “just asking questions” but has recently become convinced that everyone in the world except him is always unfair to his new friend Don.
Trump quickly emerged from his limousine looking as he usually does in moments like these: like a child who is already restless to be let out of church. Because he has no sense of continuity with the past or debt to the future, he seems puzzled by the state’s dances and ceremonial duties. He understands a nice big office—it’s where you fire people, talk to whatever big shot will answer your call (these days, most of them), or take photos of yourself looking busy and important. But the altar at which she kneels will always be a stranger to Trump. He was accompanied by his wife, Melania, who was ready for another tour of duty, wearing a sharp-looking, wide-brimmed navy and white hat that brought to mind Michael Jackson. The razor’s edge was saying “Stay back” and “I’d rather not have to see this” all in one breath. The Trumps are experienced in their version of this job now, and so are we, unfortunately.
After church, Trump headed to the White House, where he held his mandatory meeting with him Joe Biden— Trump opted out of this reunion in 2020 because, again, he believes this kind of thing is for fools unless he’s the winner — and then he went to the inauguration, inside the Capitol, another place he has found amazing ways to desecrate. You would think he would be laughing as he stood there on the dais in the rotunda, about to take the oath not long after Incitement to riot In the same building. But Trump’s sense of humor – you have to admit it’s there; Like it or not, his action in Dangerfield is one reason he remains politically relevant — and it doesn’t extend far. He certainly has no sarcasm when it comes to interior decor. His great aesthetic talent is to transform harsh environments into staging areas for Schlock.
The rest of the crowd, seen through roving, irony-hungry news cameras, were all in comical proximity: Jared Kushner sat not far from Zuckerberg, the two of them robotically shaking hands and otherwise playing off human social skills. Jill Biden — who has reportedly given her husband some of the worst advice of this American century, a quarter of which she has already spent — looked shocked and, at times, appeared, at least to my eyes, to be choking back tears. She should have spent these feelings in selfless talk with Joe long before July. Thomas Chisholm’s hymn “Great is Your Faithfulness” was played on the piano as Elon Musk looked around with his bleary eyes and inexplicable body language. A volatile billionaire is willing to advise a disloyal president – a version of American greatness that only the most ardent cynics could love.
There were cameras installed in the hallway leading to the rotunda, so that television viewers could see the National Administration’s previous attempts to enter the building. Bill and Hillary Clinton were walking, looking nervous. Barack Obama, who has a habit of appearing like a stag in such matters, said Michelle no thanks two weeks ago to that. Jimmy Carter’s funeralanother set piece to underscore the weakness of America’s civil religion — his usual Bob, great-guy act that’s starting to get old as real emergencies continue to lick our butts. Joe Biden and Kamala HarrisThese totems of democratic deficit, they walked in together and acted as if they had been instructed never to shoot at each other even with a passing glance. The old bipartisan establishment, which somehow continues to make room for real estate fraud in New York, seemed as delighted and confused as Trump has shown it twice now. Trump is a disaster, but he has confirmed the growing feeling, almost everywhere in our country, that these people deserve to be defeated, over and over again, until they change, or better yet, pass the baton on forever.
Trump’s consistently bad taste in music is almost laughable. He brought in Christopher Macchio — apparently a favorite of his late brother Robert — to sing not one but two numbers at the opening ceremony. As things were going, Macchio was wrestling with his own style, and as he sang a mushy version of “Oh, America,” he was struggling against the rhythm set by whoever was on the drums.
Timothy Dolan, the publicity-loving Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of New York, impressed the audience by saying, “Without God, our efforts turn to ashes.” That’s a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., whose holiday—another irony, perhaps sadder than others but no less natural as a result of this nation’s ever-increasing paradoxes—was furloughed this year to share space with the nonstop agitator of the Central Park Five. Franklin Graham, Billy’s Son – a classic local example of the slight decline from one American generation to the next; His father can be a fanatic at times, but at least the man can preach, i.e. submit to Trump, directing his prayers more to the man than to God. “In the last four years, there have been times, I’m sure you thought, that were very dark,” he said. “But look what God has done.”
When Trump was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts, he smiled a little smile that broke the fourth wall. He knows better than most where the cameras are and who his true audience is: the people back home huddled around their televisions. What he said with this gesture was: Now are you looking at this? These losers let me come back!
Without full knowledge of the last few days of Trump’s life, it is impossible to claim this as fact, but I felt confident, watching Trump deliver his inaugural address, that he was reading it for the first time. His energy was low, especially at first, and his tone was like that of an elementary school child pushed to the front of the class and forced to recite. He emphasized the wrong parts of several long sentences, and rushed through entire paragraphs that were clearly dull in content. “Sunlight is pouring over the whole world,” he said madly. When he read his speechwriter’s promise that the next administration “will not forget our God,” Trump, in his grandiose sarcastic way, added what sounded like an off-handed lie: “I can’t do that.” And it’s true: you can’t forget what you never thought about.
But it’s weird: Trump clearly has no real respect for religion and its followers — at least during part of the swearing-in, his hand wasn’t on the Bible Melania was holding for him, but rather it was hanging next to him — and he has nothing to do with religion. The strong and sometimes uneasy faith in divine providence that had lingered beneath all sorts of American glories and American malfeasance, but this time he chose to portray himself as a specially favored vessel of the Almighty. He still uses real shock An attempt on his life last July in Pennsylvania to give himself the glowing appearance of true religion. “God saved me to make America great again,” he said. If you believe in God, it is hard to deny that He survived that day. But in order to maintain your faith and love of life as it presents itself to us—let alone America—one must retain a rich sense of divine comedy and cosmic mystery. And who can know, until time runs out, what Trump is still up to? Maybe just to keep repeating lies so big that we can all assume their opposite meanings are indisputably true — like this huge one thrown out later in the speech: “This is what I want to be: a peacemaker and unifier.”
