It was the Saturday before the Inauguration. There I was, a proud member of the Liberal Elites’s Class of 2025, in a foggy Washington D.C. cigar bar with my Donald Trump-loving uncle, a cardboard cutout of the convicted president-elect, and hordes of true-believers spewing enough Cohiba smoke to suffocate the Eastern Seaboard. My eyes stung and I felt a palpable discomfort in my spine. It was as if I’d woken up to a fever dream where every breath that I inhaled was coated with molecules of history and hatred.
I had booked a trip on this fateful weekend to visit an old friend before heading back to Wesleyan. Everyone I mentioned it to had the same advice: be careful. Most people I asked in D.C. said they were “fleeing the city.”
The trip quickly turned into a deep dive exploring the country’s political extremes. The crowd on the 7:45 A.M. Acela out of Daniel Patrick Moynihan Station in New York was split 50/50: half decked in red MAGA paraphernalia, half glaring back in anger. Two middle-aged women wearing matching wire-rimmed glasses sat next to me, and one was working on a poster showing the Earth on fire with a gaping, screaming mouth. They were both art professors who were part of a small group headed to the People’s March, the newly re-branded version of the Women’s March that mobilized millions nationwide to protest Trump’s first inauguration in 2017. As we spoke, I heard a sudden rasping and hacking behind me. It was a 30-something white guy with a horrible cough. He wore a MAGA hat, an American flag tie, and, as my bespectacled artist seat mate angrily pointed out, no mask.
On the train, the inferno I was headed into belatedly dawned on me: a city full of flag-waving, conspiracy-fueled, red-hatted yahoos was new territory for me. I’d spent the last three-and-a half years soaking up knowledge at what collegetransitions.com lists as number 23 in its rankings of “most liberal colleges in America.” Well, President Michael Roth ’78 has often advised students to increase their exposure to conservative ideas. Mission accomplished.
The train pulled into Washington D.C.’s Union Station; before we said goodbye, one of my seatmates introduced me to a fellow pilgrim from New York City headed to the march: Emily Whitfield, who happened to be the daughter of two former Classics professors at Wesleyan.
“I don’t feel we can change anything,” Whitfield told me. “But I do feel the need to be around other people to buoy our spirits. This is our way of coping. It’s the beginning.”
I was skeptical, but also curious. On a weekend that even Trump, the emperor of ego, decided was too cold to flaunt his historical hubris in front of the masses, I took to the street to talk to them myself.
I hopped on an electric bike and started toward the march at the Lincoln Memorial, on the way viewing a few alarming previews of what lay ahead. I passed an ambulance with massive lights spelling “Trump Save America,” followed by a small motorcade of trucks, each one with wheels bigger than the last. As I continued down Constitution Avenue, I saw about a dozen MAGA hat-wearing Trumpites passing right by a similar-sized swarm sporting pink pussy hats. This city, bleak and cold, did what few could: bring opposing forces into uneasy coexistence.
At the Lincoln Memorial, thousands of sign-holding, chanting, jeering people filled about a quarter of the National Mall. The Reflecting Pool, usually a site for the quiet contemplation of our nation’s ideals and history, was frozen. I quickly realized that what was billed as a “movement of solidarity” was actually far from a unifying force. I saw three fights in the first five minutes—one between members of a counter-protest against homosexuality and People’s Marchers; another where a man holding a Palestinian flag and a woman waving an Israeli flag sparred; and one between two men, one wearing a Washington Commanders jersey and the other sporting a Baltimore Ravens hat. The signs I saw were preaching anything but togetherness. “Deport Melania,” read one. “Someday we will shit on their graves,” and “fuck them all” were among other pleasant messages. I noticed a trio of students wearing Trump hats and asked them what they thought of the March.
“I think everyone should have freedom of speech, so there’s nothing wrong, but people have been aggressive and rude, and that is what I take issue with,” Lily Benfor, one of the students, said.
As I watched, my uncle, who knew I was in D.C., texted me to meet him and his MAGA buddies at Shelley’s Backroom—accurately described on its website as a “clubby lounge featuring humidors and a lengthy whiskey list.” I left the protest and biked the 10 minutes back, just a couple of blocks from the White House, to MAGA-central.
The scene at Shelly’s was a conservative frat party on steroids. Upon sitting down, each customer was offered a drink menu, a food menu, and, of course, a cigar menu. Trump regalia was everywhere. There were handlebar mustaches and shaved heads, and every staff member wore an American flag vest. There was enough testosterone and ego to make Joe Rogan blush. The air stung my eyes and not a soul cared where they blew the smoke (which seemed to be almost always directly in my face). My uncle took me around introducing me to so-called celebrities of the Trump world.
One of these men was John Loudon, former Missouri State Senator and proud member of Mar-a-Lago, who spoke to me without a trace of irony.
“It’s kind of like a Woodstock sort of thing,” Louden said. “Hanging with like-minded people and celebrating taking the country back,”
Leo Zacky, a Republican candidate for Governor of California, explained to me that he was here “to network.”
Serhii Shakhov, a Ukrainian member of Parliament, was surrounded by fans touting him as the next president of Ukraine.
“I like Donald Trump and God,” Skhahov said.
As I was passed like a football from reveler to reveler, I heard less about Republicans and more about liberals. The hatred was glaring: the communist Hell that would’ve been unleashed had Trump lost, the general depravity of Democrats. Finally, one brazen customer explained that liberal men were stupid because their only romantic options would be liberal women, who did not cook or clean or know their role in life.
“I’ll kill you if you quote me,” he said.
Yet, to me, a white male student they hoped to convert to their cause, most were joyfully ingratiating, buying me drinks and offering cigars. And there was indeed love—love for Trump which they demonstrated by kissing a portrait of him on a tribute wall as they entered. A few openly admitted they were expecting the new president to pardon them for their “visit” to the Capitol on Jan. 6th, 2021. The unapologetic certainty mixed with loathing made the world feel as thick and oppressive as the smoke wafting into my face and lungs.
I woke up early on Monday. The temperature was 20 degrees, 14 with a wind chill; it seemed like hell really had frozen over. The inauguration relocated to the Capitol Rotunda and the carnival-like festivities spilled into the streets and Capital One Arena. Masses of Trump supporters, dressed in extravagantly absurd MAGA gear, were everywhere: Golden Trump capes, Trump goggles, cowboy hats, and kids wrapped entirely in Trump flags. Logan Howard of Tennessee, who donned a Roman robe and wreath, came to see “Emperor Trump.”
A long line of supporters waited outside the arena, matched by an equally large number of security and vendors selling even more Trump gear. As it neared noon, I walked inside Proper 21 Social Club, a bar with a couple of hundred red hats watching a dozen Fox News screens blaring the inauguration. The faithful pumped their fists, hugged, kissed, and even wept as Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts swore him in for the second time in eight years, this time in the same building desecrated by his supporters four years and fourteen days ago—and on the opposite end of the Mall from where MLK Jr. famously spoke 60 years and 145 days earlier.
Just two days prior, at the People’s March, I was able to speak one-on-one with the movement’s director, Tamika Middleton. I thought about what she had said about King’s vision.
“Yes, about Dr. King, we want to build a beloved community in his spirit,” she said. “And part of that is taking our righteous anger and transforming it into action…. There are radical uses of anger, and the question is how we use it and what we use it for.”
I left before Trump finished his speech, navigating through packed snowy streets, closed gates, and Secret Service checkpoints to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall. When I arrived, the scene was eerily serene. It was MLK Day, yet hardly anyone was there.
Two women strolled amid the scant crowd. They were seniors at George Washington University.
“The new administration contradicts what MLK stood for,” Emma Rhoades, who visits the monument every MLK Day, said. “But as long as there’s someone here that still believe in things like hope and freedom there will be more ways to go.”
Behind the memorial was a wall of MLK quotes. “Hate cannot drive out hate,” read one. “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope,” read another.
I’ve wanted to go into policy-making, law, or activism. I’ve led walkouts and sit-ins. I’ve interned for Assembly members and Congressmen and attended one of the most liberal schools in the country. Now it seemed like the world was drowning in anger. I had seen so much hatred that weekend. So much division. So much resentment. I started out wondering whether this was a trip that would spark activism or apathy. Now, I am wondering how to stop myself, and others, from becoming consumed by the anger that I saw on every step of this journey. How, after seeing all the hatred reflected in the cold winter air and the frozen waters of the National Mall, could I avoid being consumed by that anger?
I gazed up at the pale, granite, 30-foot-tall statue of Dr. King. It stood steadfast against the biting cold, gazing over the frozen waters. And as I walked beneath, the sun broke through the winter haze, casting a golden glow on one side. In the background I could see the Washington Monument looming, its reflection faintly visible in the icy surface below.
Ben Shifrel is a member of the class of 2025 and can be reached at bshifrel@wesleyan.edu.