Past the seats reserved for dignitaries, out beyond the point where Donald Trump was discernible from a distance, people huddled around the Jumbotron, like tailgaters around the grill. The mood was giddy and informal, a contrast to that of the protesters far away and the forced bonhomie of Republicans and Democrats onstage at Trump’s Inauguration. Someone lit a joint, and teen-agers in green-camouflage Trump hats giggled at the aroma. The sky was dishwater-gray, spitting rain, but nobody complained. In the “non-ticketed” sections of the National Mall, where Trump’s supporters had room to roam and marvel at their achievement, Washington felt, for a few hours, like home.
Many museums and offices were closed for the day, giving Washington an odd emptiness. More than ninety per cent of the District of Columbia did not vote for Trump, so most of the people on the Mall on Friday morning had travelled a long way. Walking in, a woman in a blue windbreaker swivelled her head to take in a Panera on one side of the street and a Starbucks on the other. "I love all the bakeries. Goddamn," she said. The security lines, which were short, attracted a few peaceful protesters with signs: “Trump Nyet.” “Repeal and Replace Trump.” “This is not Normal.” Three young Trump fans, straddling red bike-share cycles, jeered at a man holding a sign that said, “Trump is an Insult to Our Intelligence.” One of those on the bikes said, “He’s a billionaire! How much money have you got?” An elegant older woman in a Trump scarf tried to smooth things over. “Good morning! Enjoy!” she said.
As the hour of Trump’s swearing-in approached, the Jumbotron showed politicians and donors taking their seats: Melania Trump (cheers), Hillary Clinton (boos), Sheldon Adelson (no reaction). Trump’s speech offered a portrait of a crippled, humiliated country—“This American carnage stops right here”—with rusted-out factories scattered like “tombstones” on the horizon. But his fans gravitated to other images. When he talked about getting people “off of welfare” and back to work “with American hands and American labor,” Brian Dukes cheered. A forty-nine-year-old barber who lives in Philadelphia, Dukes had cheeks ruddy from the rain, and he wore a wool Trump hat with a pompom on top. He and his wife, Pat, and their sixteen-year-old son, Brian, Jr., had never been to an Inauguration before. “I just put it out on Facebook that I needed a ride,” Dukes said. “And I got seats on the bus. It seemed like God just provided it all.”
I asked him why he liked Trump. “He seems like a man who keeps his word. He's been successful in business, and this country is a business. It's not about feelings here,” he said. Now that Brian, Jr., was nearly grown, Pat had gone back to school to get a bachelor’s degree in business, and she was counting on Trump to deliver on his promises, so that she could get a good-paying job and defray some of her son’s college tuition. “Hopefully, you know, things will start up and jobs will come back,” she said.
Her husband said that he was happy Trump’s Presidency would allow him to speak his mind freely. “I almost got fired from my job for talking about Trump,” he said. “I was talking about Trump with a customer, and the person sitting next to me didn't say a word. They just went and Yelped. They put me as a bigot, a misogynist, all these things.” His boss gave him a warning. “ ‘You can’t say nothing. Keep your opinions to yourself.’ And I told them that never in my twenty-five years of barbering have I ever not been able to talk about politics.” He continued, “I said, If you need me move on, I'll move on. But I'm not going to change who I am.” The owner let him stay, but asked him to tone it down.
“People in Philadelphia are very sensitive to social issues,” Dukes said. “A lot of snowflakes,” he said, using a term that mocks progressives as fragile. I asked if he felt vindicated. He grinned and said, “I'm one of the happiest people in the world right now.”
Nearby, three teen-agers from Chantilly, Virginia, held identical signs: “I am a Muslim. Ask Me Anything.” Hashim Khan, a slim eighteen-year-old Pakistani-American, who was wearing a backward ball cap, told me, “Somebody did one of these, I think, in England, and then it spread.” He said, “There's a lot of Islamophobia going around, and so we're trying to show that shouldn't be true.” What kinds of questions had they received? “Some people say, ‘Oh, how you doing? What's your favorite color?’ And some people are like, ‘What do you think about Trump?’ A lot of people are so nice to us.”
At that point, a passerby, a middle-aged man with a mustache and an Eastern European accent, interrupted. “You sure you want me to ask you anything?”
Khan said, “I'm sorry?”
“You sure you want me to ask you anything?”
“Yes, sir,” Khan said, smiling. “Anything.”
“Why did you destroy Christianity from this world?”
“That’s not true at all,” Khan said.
“No Christian is alive in your country. Not one. It's all a lie.”
“America is our country,” Khan said.
A curious crowd was forming. The man was getting agitated. “It's all a lie. Oh, ‘America is your country.’ I see. What about Lebanon? What about Syria? Egypt?”
“Those are radicals,” Khan said.
“You're nice only when you're a minority. When you get the majority, you do what you need to do.”
“No, not at all,” Khan said.
The man wandered off.
A tall, young man with blond hair, who had watched the confrontation, approached and said, “Hey, I'm a Christian. I want you to know that I respect what you guys are doing.”
“We respect Christians, too,” Khan said.
As the crowd dispersed, I talked to another of the sign-holders, Rahel Tauyyab, a sixteen-year-old at Chantilly High School. His father is an engineer in the Air Force. I asked how things were at Chantilly High School these days. “I mean, there's definitely a stigma ever since the election, where Muslims are like this outcast type of people. I definitely feel like it's less—”
A passerby shouted at Tauyyab, “FREEDOM! FREEDOM!” He kept walking.
Tauyyab turned back to me. “We live in a region where it's, like, a little more liberal, but I've visited places. I went to Louisiana for a trip for Humanity First, which is an organization that helps humanitarian relief. I experienced a totally different vibe from going to different parts of the country. But, definitely, where I live, I'm grateful that we have so much acceptance, even if there is a little bit of fear. But I'm glad that we live in this country.”
Does he worry about life under President Trump, who has talked of creating a registry of Muslims, and of barring them from entering the country?
“We have to work with him,” the sixteen-year-old said. “We can't be against whatever he says. He's our President, and we have to support him in that way. But, at the same time, we want to bring meaningful change. We want to bring hope. We don't want to have racism or any discrimination against any groups, whether it’s Muslims or anyone else.”
Before I left, I asked Tauyyab what he wants to do when he get out of school. “I want to go into the political sphere,” he said. I told him that if he ran for office he’d have my vote.
As I looked for the exit, a ripple of excitement passed over the crowd, and I turned in time to see the Marine helicopter carrying Barack and Michelle Obama bank west, away from the Capitol, pounding its way across a leaden sky. Some people booed. A man in an Elvis impersonator’s outfit cheered, ambiguously. The helicopter passed behind buildings along the north side of the National Mall, and it was gone.
