WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Jan. 19, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States, thousands of his supporters lined up outside the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. The conditions were awful: skies completely overcast, freezing temperatures, and precipitation that alternated between rain, sleet, and snow. Yet these die-hard fans were undeterred, lining up in the early morning hours for a rally inside the arena that started at 3:00 p.m.
The arena event was part of a last-minute change in plans. Days earlier, Trump announced that due to the cold weather, the inauguration and its accompanying events would be held indoors.
Not everyone who made it to the rally endured hours in the freezing, unmoving line. Directly next to where Trump’s supporters waited, there was a separate entrance for “VIPs.” Around 2:00 p.m., hundreds of people, relatively dry and dressed in their Sunday best with plastic gold lanyards, skipped the line and walked straight to a security checkpoint. The confusion and frustration among the proles were audible. “How come they get to go there?” a child asked. (They, or someone they know, had paid a lot of money to Trump’s inaugural committee.) People accosted the VIPs, asking if they had any extra lanyards, but none did.
The VIPs included Trump staffers, wealthy nobodies, fascist teenagers I had encountered previously at conservative political conferences, and Japanese billionaire and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Nigel Farage, the former British MP and leader of the Brexit movement, also made an appearance.
As more people joined the VIP line, Trump fans became agitated and began yelling at those they believed had skipped the line. The haphazard planning allowed people to easily slip past the bike racks holding the line together and head toward the front. The whole scene couldn’t have been a more obvious sign of what was to come. The next day, Trump would be inaugurated inside the Capitol, flanked by tech billionaires who had paid their way back into his good graces.
It all made Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 seem quaint. The small crowd size became the first controversy of his administration. Now, however, the loyalty and dedication of his supporters was undeniable. My first thought upon seeing the massive line in the early morning hours was that it was impossible to imagine thousands of people lining up in these conditions for any incumbent Democrat.
There were only two counter-protesters attempting to agitate the line. They used bullhorns, played loud sirens, and chanted, “Trump is a loooser!” and “You voted for a felon!” over and over again for hours. (After Trump was inaugurated on Monday, I witnessed a small protest against the genocide in Gaza, corporate oligarchy, and D.C.’s lack of statehood that marched a couple of miles away from the Capitol.)
The festivities somehow felt just like the first Trump rally I ever covered, nearly 10 years ago in Richmond, Va. Except this time, none of it was new or interesting. It feels almost impossible to imagine another four years of Trump-style tailgating, which hasn’t evolved much since it began in 2016. Still, there was still a palpable excitement among the crowd.
Those in line spoke giddily about the prospect of mass deportations. Vendors saturated the streets with cheap Trump merchandise: “Daddy’s Home” T-shirts, blankets featuring a photo of Trump’s near-assassination in Butler, Penn., and gold necklaces with a totem of Trump’s head. The Trump merch sellers seemed frustrated and desperate, overwhelmed by competition. A woman selling MAGA hats held her head in her hands and muttered, “This is the worst one of these yet.”
On the day of the inauguration, the main event was the same: a huge line outside the arena. The weather turned out to be bearable—in the 20s but sunny. It seems reasonable to speculate that the real reason the events were moved indoors was due to security concerns.
Shortly after noon, about 100 Proud Boys materialized and marched away from the arena. That too felt like another sad rerun. Nearby, women danced in the street as the Village People’s "Y.M.C.A." played.
