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Wednesday, January 22
Well, here we are. Trump 2.0 has officially arrived and with it: a slew of executive orders that are bad for democracy, pardoning of the Jan. 6 rioters and the world’s richest man giving a Nazi salute at a Trump rally. I can’t say I’m surprised, but the past few days have been dark ones for the future of democracy. That being said, the swift and robust legal response to Trump’s actions give me some hope for the next four years.
As always, thanks for reading.
— Matt Cohen, Senior Staff Writer
Trump is back in the Oval Office, and it’s time to plan how to fight back. Join Marc tomorrow, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. ET for a live debrief of Trump’s inaugural address, the new lawsuits against his administration and what to expect. This event is exclusive to Democracy Docket members — upgrade now to join ([link removed]) !
** A Dark Inauguration Day for Democracy
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My memories of President Donald Trump’s first inauguration, back in 2017, are still burned into my brain.
I was working for D.C.’s storied alt-weekly, Washington City Paper, and was assigned to cover the many inauguration protests around the city that day. I biked around downtown, stopping to interview various Trump supporters and protesters, until I found one of the larger protests marching toward the National Mall. I was no stranger to covering protests — social justice was one of my main beats, which had me covering large and small demonstrations throughout D.C., almost weekly. But this day was different.
For weeks, the fear, anxiety and tension of the incoming Trump administration had evolved into righteous anger. D.C. may be a transient city — and one that’s often (and wrongly) portrayed as nothing more than the playground for the politicos and their staff in Congress — but for the hundreds of thousands of people who call it home, there’s a sense of pride and ownership about it. From go-go ([link removed]) to mumbo sauce ([link removed]) to the Washington Color School ([link removed]) , the city has a rich, storied cultural history and one that its people fiercely fight to preserve. And so, with the threat of the incoming administration, people took the streets to let Trump know: you’re not welcome.
At times, it felt like the people protesting the inauguration outnumbered the people actually attending it (which may have been the case! ([link removed]) ). At a certain point, the protest I was following — which would later be known as the DisruptJ20 protest ([link removed]) — was violently attacked by police, who eventually kettled them ([link removed]) to the corner of 12th and H Streets NW. I stood there, along with a slew of reporters, watching police drag and arrest dozens of protesters one by one.
And then all hell broke loose ([link removed]) .
Pro-Trump supporters started pushing protesters. A skirmish broke out. Hundreds of riot police went into action, pepper-spraying peaceful protesters and firing tear gas, pepper balls and flash-bang grenades into the crowds. It was a grisly scene and one that, in my eyes, came to define the next four years.
I wasn’t at Monday’s inauguration, but from the coverage I read, the scene seemed a stark opposite of Trump’s 2017 inauguration. On Saturday, two days before the inauguration, thousands of people marched on the National Mall ([link removed]) for The People’s March. But in all, the protests were markedly quieter ([link removed]) than before.
The cynical reading of this is that it’s because Trumpism won and people, even those who don’t support him, have accepted this new reality. I don’t think that’s accurate. To me, it feels like the resistance to the second Trump term isn’t so much a “take to the streets” approach than it is a more thoughtful and organized opposition using legal means to fight back. There’s a network of pro-democracy organizations ([link removed]) that spent years preparing for this moment and are challenging Trump’s flurry of executive orders in the courts almost as soon as they’re signed. That’s huge.
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** Trump 2.0: Same As It Ever Was
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In the two months since Trump’s election victory, a common refrain I saw far more than I thought I would was various notable people saying that we should give Trump ([link removed]) a chance ([link removed]) . Maybe the assassination attempt changed him ([link removed]) , some wondered. Surely he won’t do all the terrible things outlined in Project 2025, others wrongly claimed ([link removed]) . Surprise! Turns out Trump is doing all the terrible things we knew he would do.
In his first couple days in office, Trump signed a barrage of executive orders to roll back voting rights ([link removed]) , allow him to fill the federal workforce with loyalists ([link removed]) , overturn birthright citizenship and pardon ([link removed]) some 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters — including commuting the sentences of those convicted of violence against police officers on that fateful day.
It’s safe to say that, in the first 24 hours of taking office, Trump showed us exactly who he is and what he’ll do — and it’s what people have been saying all along: setting the stage for an authoritarian takeover ([link removed]) , with unfettered capitalism and oligarchy ruling the land.
There is, however, a salve: Trump’s sweeping actions have been met with a swift legal response ([link removed]) . Pro-democracy groups and organizations are well prepared ([link removed]) to fight these actions in the courts, and while we can’t predict what the courts will actually do, just know that the fight to preserve democracy is on.
** Let’s Be Clear About Elon Musk…
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By now, you’ve probably seen the video from Elon Musk’s speech at the pro-Trump rally following his inauguration. You know the one, wherein the world’s richest man, and known troll ([link removed]) , ended his remarks by giving ([link removed]) the “sieg heil” Nazi salute to the crowd — twice. You would think there would be no confusion or second-guessing as to what he did. You’d be wrong.
Yesterday, after video of the incident spread online, I sat in front of my computer slack-jawed as I read headline after headline from mainstream media outlets who tiptoed around it. CNN’s Erin Burnett called it ([link removed]) an “odd-looking salute.” “Elon Musk Ignites Online Speculation Over the Meaning of a Hand Gesture,” read a New York Times headline ([link removed]) . The Washington Post said ([link removed]) simply that Musk “stirs controversy over hand gesture at Trump rally.” Even the Anti-Defamation League, supposedly the nation’s leading organization to combat antisemitism, said on X ([link removed]) — the Musk-owned platform — that the bil
lionaire “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm.”
Maybe it’s just me, but the gesture doesn’t closely resemble any other acceptable one that I know of. It seemed pretty unmistakable, and knowing who Musk is, it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility ([link removed]) for him to do such a thing. If mainstream media can’t have the tenacity to call out a fascist salute as such, what are they even doing anymore?
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