Donald Trump’s Presidential Inauguration: A Second Coming and the Dawning of a ‘Golden Age’ for America.
Donald Trump’s inauguration extravaganza began with his touchdown in an Air Force plane at Dulles Airport in northern Virginia on 18 January 2025, shortly after 7 PM EST. That evening, he travelled to the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, for a spot of entertainment by an Elvis Presley impersonator, followed by a reception and a fireworks display. Earlier in the day, the annual Peace March, which began as the Women’s March in January 2017, brought mostly female civil rights and social justice protesters to the nation’s capital to march in support of access to abortion, climate change action, immigrant rights, and gun control laws before attending a rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Trump spent his first night back in Washington as President-elect at Blair House, the President’s Guest House on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The following day, he laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. The highlight of 19 January was the Make America Great Again Rally at the 20,000-seat Capitol One Arena, a sports venue in downtown Washington DC and home to the Washington Wizards NBA and Washington Capitals NHL teams, where rapturous audience members applauded his rousing speech and were also treated to Big Mac hamburgers and commemorative bottles of Diet Coke.
Inauguration Day, 20 January, opened at 8:00 AM EST with a non-partisan service at St. John’s Church, an Episcopal parish church, in Lafayette Square. The inauguration ceremonies were forced indoors by cold weather to the Capitol Rotunda, a sandstone hall in the middle of the Capitol which can accommodate six hundred people, rather than being conducted at the West Front of the Capitol as usual. The rationale for this move was provided by Trump on 17 January, when he wrote on his Truth Social platform: “There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see people hurt, or injured, in any way. Therefore, I have ordered the Inauguration Address, in addition to prayers and other speeches, to be delivered in the United States Capitol Rotunda, as was used by Ronald Reagan in January 1985, also because of very cold weather.” These proceedings were viewed live on screens inside the Capitol One Arena.
Donald Trump took the oath of office as 47th President, the oldest President to do so and only the second to serve two non-consecutive terms, at 12:00 PM EST on 20 January. In time-honoured fashion, he placed his left hand on a Bible, in this case his Scottish Presbyterian mother’s family Bible, and held up his right hand, as he was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts. He went on to proclaim “Liberation Day.” This was followed by the JCCIC (Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies) Congressional Luncheon at the Statuary Hall. The Presidential Parade began at 3:00 PM EST, once again in the Capitol One Arena, as the cold weather precluded the traditional route along Pennsylvania Avenue, which connects the Capitol with the White House. The traditional Signing Ceremony at the Oval Office in the White House saw Trump sign as many as a hundred Executive Orders to make good on his many promises and to usher in a “revolution of common sense”, starting with the declaration of a national emergency on the US-Mexico border. The evening was given over to three inaugural balls: the Commander in Chief Ball, the Liberty Inaugural Ball, and the Starlight Ball. A first-ever inaugural Crypto Ball had been held earlier, on 17 January, in keeping with Trump’s new-found enthusiasm for cryptocurrency.
The Presidential inauguration was well-funded, with $170 million raised for the day’s events. Attendees included former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden and their First Ladies, apart from Michelle Obama, who was conspicuous by her absence. Vice President Kamala Harris did attend. As expected, tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg graced the proceedings, as did the CEOs of Apple, Google, Open AI, and TikTok. The inauguration was the first to be attended by foreign heads of state. Among those invited were the Presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, Georgia, and Paraguay, and the Prime Minister of Italy, while the Chinese President was represented by his Vice-President Han Zheng. There were also a number of attendees from the European far-right.
A reinvigorated Donald Trump ‘s Presidential agenda is most ambitious and wide-reaching, aimed at making America stronger, safer, wealthier, and healthier, not to mention bigger and great again. The US will once again be a bastion of “free speech.” Much of what can be expected in the coming days and months can be gleaned from Trump’s speech at his inauguration-eve MAGA Rally, which supplemented his acceptance speech on 6 November 2024, and was further amplified by his Inaugural Speech. He extolled the many desirable attributes of his loyal hand-picked appointees, mostly chosen from beyond the conventional ranks of career politicians, Washington insiders, bureaucrats, and technocrats. His cabinet includes as many as thirteen billionaires, while others have been chosen to represent America as ambassadors.
Trump promised to secure America’s supposedly leaky borders, although he did not repeat his earlier pledge to “Build the Wall”, and committed to the immediate mass deportation of illegal “aliens”, among whose ranks, in his opinion, are to be found the rejected criminals of many countries from across the world. An “Iron Dome” missile shield will protect America from its enemies. Trump reaffirmed his support for guns to reassure his supporters. He confirmed that law and order will return to the crime-ridden Democratic-run cities of America.
Donald Trump said he would cut taxes, reduce inflation, increase wages, and bring manufacturing jobs back to America. He vowed to reverse Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) programmes and yet again voiced his displeasure at transgender rights, critical race theory, and other similarly “woke” initiatives related to America’s culture wars. As a climate change denier, Trump will boost oil and gas production to combat an “energy emergency”, revoke Biden’s Green Energy New Deal, and withdraw America from the Paris Climate Accords. His newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will slash federal budgets by as much as 2 trillion dollars, making for a much leaner and meaner state. Nearly 1,600 Capitol rioters from 6 January 2021, or so-called “J6 hostages”, will be pardoned. Classified files relating to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, will be made public. Biden’s “destructive” Executive Orders will be repealed.
Trump claimed that the benefits of his incoming Presidency were noticeable even before he had taken office, as the economy responded positively to his return and as the hostages’ deal between Israel and Hamas was concluded. He modestly referred to this as the “Trump effect”-achieved with the collaboration of his “patriotic” supporters. He even benefited from the “rigged” election of 2020, in that he was now able to oversee the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence. As a global peacemaker, and potential Nobel Peace Prize candidate, he will end the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine conflicts, although not on day one of his Presidency as originally suggested, and will also prevent World War III.
The die has been cast, and none of what Trump is promising should come as a total surprise, although his appetite for territorial expansion appears to have grown since he last demitted office. Results will be expected from the latest occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, as he sets about to establish his new Utopia and thereby resurrect the American Dream. Ultimately, the test of Trump’s Presidency will rest upon his ability to deliver on his many far-reaching promises. Either way, another chapter of history is now in the making.
Ashis Banerjee.