© Laura Racero.
Oh, where to start. I guess we’ll start with “Hey, look, a tiny, Bane-full inauguration!
(Photo: Wikipedia commons and screen capture).
For all the boasting about the bigliest ever, the crowds at Trump’s inauguration were woefully scant. The Twitternet jumped all over this immediately, and you can see many of the tweets here. Also noted by the Twitternet, and most everyone else on the planet, Trump borrowed a bit of his speech from a fictional villain, which is terribly apropos, but he picked the wrong villain, Bane. Bane was more of a “eat the rich!” kind of villain. That didn’t stop Trump:
Fans of the Batman franchise film The Dark Knight Rises were startled to hear the words of the movie villain Bane coming out of Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s mouth as he made his inaugural address — purportedly written by Trump himself — on Friday.
“We’re giving the power back to you. The people,” Trump said Friday, a nearly verbatim quote from Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s screenplay for the 2012 film starring Christian Bale as Batman and Tom Hardy as Bane.
You can read all about this one, and see some of the tweets here.
The Twitternet also broke out in gales of laughter and comparisons over Kellyanne Conway’s outfit:
Kellyanne Conway attends President Trump’s inauguration (Screen cap).
Conway’s outfit, which TMZ claims she describes as “Trump Revolutionary Wear,” is a red-white-and-blue getup that is meant to be somewhat reminiscent of Revolutionary War-era military uniforms.
CNN’s Hunter Schwarz notes that her coat is actually a $3,600 Gucci wool a-line coat — and CNN’s Kate Bennett writes that the coat was originally designed to pay tribute to the city of London, which isn’t exactly a place to celebrate the American Revolution.
You can read all about that, and see tweets here. Oh, and the buttons on it are cat heads.
Then there’s a compilation of all the things that didn’t happen, didn’t come through, and weren’t bigly at all:
Women’s March bus permit requests outnumber inauguration requests by 3 times.
Most hotel bookings have been made by anti-Trump protesters.
Trump is wrong (again): dress shops still have plenty of available frocks.
“There’s never been less demand for inaugural ballgowns in my 38 years,” Peter Marx, who owns D.C. dress shop Saks Jandel, told People. “Never ever has it been less for the inaugural.”
Other shops expressed similar sentiments.
“We were expecting heavy traffic and it has not been that way,” a D.C. Bloomingdale’s representative told Elle. “The last inauguration was a lot more people shopping.”
A spokesperson from Intermix told the outlet, “Usually, it is really big for us, but this year we haven’t seen anything yet, surprisingly.”
Elle notes that “among others we called, White House Black Market and Cusp in Georgetown confirmed they have options in stock. So does Neiman Marcus. And Gucci. And Lord & Taylor. And Nordstrom.”
There’s more here.
And there were artists out, as well as all the marchers and protesters. FORCE put on a big show:
CREDIT: Nate Larson.
…For roughly 45 minutes, a slideshow of photos and quotes from survivors circulated on the front of the building, as passersby stopped to take it in. The organizers of the installation hoped their message reached at least a few visitors here for Trump’s inauguration.
“As a native woman, as a queer woman, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and intimate parter violence, there’s so much that is traumatic about seeing my country support somebody that represents violence against all of those things,” said Rebecca Nagle, a co-director of FORCE. “The racism and the misogyny that [Trump] represents is bigger than just him as a person and a figurehead, but is something that is deeply embedded in American culture.”
Many victims of sexual assault were particularly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump, who bragged on tape about sexually abusing woman. Now, as he prepares to enter the White House, there are already signs that Trump won’t pursue policies aimed at preventing sexual violence. As part of his proposed plan to reduce government spending, Trump administration officials reportedly approached the Department of Justice with a plan to eliminate the federal grants used to combat violence against women.
“The goal of the piece is really to uplift survivors voices at a time that a lot of people are normalizing Trump’s behavior,” said Nagle.
Full story at Think Progress. A great work by FORCE!
And because there’s always bad news:
President Donald Trump’s whitehouse.gov page omitted references to a number of policy issues championed by his predecessor, including climate change, civil rights and healthcare, providing a blueprint for the new administration’s priorities over the next four years.
Full story here.
Don’t forget that Trump updated his twitter feed with a picture of the massive crowds from Obama’s inauguration presented as being from his own.
Oh for…really? I don’t, I don’t, fuck, I don’t grok that at all. Like no one is going to know the difference?
OMG Richard Spencer was punched in the face following the inauguration :)
Scroll down for the video clip here
There’s also a GIF of the moment here
Beautiful. And I thought this circus was going to have no silver lining at all.
The BBC has a pair of shots which you can slide one over the other from the Washington Monument comparing Obama’s 2009 inauguration to today’s.
@ 3 Saad
Yeah, down with fascism, and yay for punches in the face.
Fucknuckle.
I made the mistake of reading comments under some cz news. I should not have done that. Even here are people cheering for getting “that ni*r out of the white house” and finally stopping with fighting “fake global warming” and stopping healthcare for “lazy n*ers”.
This species does not deserve to be preserved.
Saad
*tsk tsk* We mustn’t endorse violence like that. Please just try and give them a chance, let’s just work toGETHer, okaaaaaay?
(Didn’t he get punched twice…? Or was that someone being wishful?)
@ ^ Charly : Yes it does -- I disagree although I can see why you may well think otherwise at times. Those people saying that shit -- they would be the worst of our species and we do still have a better of our species. We also have lots of great people in the world who are the opposite of Trump supporters and are working and protesting and fighting back and trying tomake our planet better and fairer for everyone. Please don’t ever forget that.
I agree strongly with Phil Plait here & strongly recommend reading this :
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2017/01/20/if_you_need_to_find_some_strength_saturn_s_moon_daphnis_may_help.html
Excerpt :
I don’t know if this has already been mentioned or not here, sorry, but in case it hasn’t been yet :
http://distractify.com/humor/2017/01/17/trump-inauguration-excuses?utm_content=inf_11_53_2&tse_id=INF_3d1f7ce0dcf911e6a03c354c456e1db2
Some classic comments there.
Ditto this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmbttoxUeE
I don’t know if it helps much but its funny and pretty much spot on. Seen via one Ed Brayton’s facebook threads. Laugh or cry? Both then fight?
Regarding the picture from the wrong inauguration (#1), here’s the BBC on it.
Some quotes:
Because it’s never too early for propaganda. Shame on those who point it out as such.
Right, a record low perhaps. The BBC annotates this with an even nicer compare / contrast picture of the 2009 / 2017 crowds.
@7. rq.
According to Aussie ABC news online; Neo-Nazi Spencer was indeed punched twice :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-21/richard-spencer-national-policy-institute-punched-abc-interview/8200270
Hmm ..seems that punch may have given him a rare moment of lucidity? (I know NOT condoning violence but .. a bit of grim humour irresistible.)
Addendum to my previous post:
The BBC has even more comparison pictures, this time with their slghtly odd interactive feature, although it works quite nicely under the circumstances. Not to overinterpret this, but on the two Trump close-up pictures (“Oath of office”, “Leaving the capitol”) everyone looks a lot more solemn than in the Obama versions, where everybody seemed very cheerful. It seems to reflect the mood of the nation or perhaps even the world.
It was also fitting, in a dark and foreboding sense, that the previous president of The Gambia is finally stepping down (BBC). He refused to step down after losing the election and has finally been forced out after neighbouring countries threatened military intervention. Makes me wonder who’d force Trump out if it came to that. Who would even have the means?
The Grauniad showcases some up-and-coming Democrat leadership potential, and it is actually encouraging to see a great amount of diversity in their selection.
Sort of a positive note in this tragic symphony (via birgerjohansson’s comment on Pharyngula’s Day of Mourning thread).
Charly
I’m not reading local news. Because I’m pretty sure they will have the same kinds of comments -- with the added bonus of being generally ignorant of how terrible Trump actually is, because people only read what the media presents to them, and it’s a whitewashed, normalized version… I mean, they write about Trump as if he’s a legitimate leader.
Anyway. I was among the 200 or so in the local Sister March, went with my mum (our first political action together!), who had knit herself a pussy hat last evening; all in all it was nice, except for the falling ice (which can be attributed neither to Trump nor ISIS nor Putin, but to the local lack of snow-cleaning habits -- luckily, the man behind us put his sign over our heads and the bulk of it was diverted).
StevoR, #10
LOL, and by the same man too.
It would be my pleasure to bake this person some cookies.
Silentbob @ 5:
Why yes, fascism and a nazi being decked are completely the same thing. I notice that you didn’t bother with your fuckwitted response over at Pharyngula, where PZ also had a bright moment, seeing Spencer punched. Spencer is a fucking NAZI, you dimwitted shit. He’d see people like myself tossed into camps, put into slavery, or just plain old killed because nazi. There’s a delusional narcissist sitting in the highest office of the land, surrounded by white supremacists, and you want to cry about Spencer getting his neato nazi hair mussed?
Get your fucking priorities straight before you comment here again, and especially before you attempt to denigrate a person who has been a consistently insightful and always compassionate commenter. Did it even enter that peabrain of yours what all this means to Saad and their family? Do you know, and do you care? If anyone is a “fuckknuckle” here, I’d say it’s you. Particularly since you showed up here with absolutely nothing to say about one of the darkest days ever in this lost country.
Also, this.
I do admit, interpreting it as an alt-highfive has made me giggle several times today.
I read Silentbob’s post as not sarcastic and calling Spencer a fucknuckle. I’m not sure anymore, but I’d rather think that until they confirm.
But there are plenty of people who are outraged about violence being used against someone for merely having a “different opinion” from us. This is who you’re defending. He’s merely expressing a “different opinion”, right? You know. Our opinion is that we should be living in peace and equality. His opinion is that we should be eliminated. Just two different equally valid opinions. Let’s discuss them in peace and civility.
Also, you have to be willfully ignoring history to act like this isn’t an urgently dangerous thing that needs to be shut down immediately at all costs. I want him and his kind to never feel safe in public.
Caine, #14
Thank you. That means quite a lot to me at this time when so many people around me seem unfazed despite of the many ominous news coming out of various parts of the country. Online commenting is more or less the only outlet I seem to be able to find.
Saad
I expect my sarcasm at your comment was rather out of place this time. I apologize for being flippant when it is quite clear it was inappropriate.
Also, I worry for you -- if that counts for anything.
Oh, nothing for you to apologize for. I know where you stand on stuff like this and know what you meant. And thanks.
The Trump team even plagiarized a cake for the inauguration!
The one made for Obama four years ago had “different tiers would each be of different flavors, from red velvet to pumpkin-chocolate chip.” The Trump version, fittingly, was mainly just an empty prop, made from Styrofoam except for three inches of the bottom layer.
At least the bakery which was commissioned to copy the Obama cake for Trump decided to donate all proceeds to the Human Rights Campaign.
Someone posted this elseblog: On The Propriety of Punching Nazis.
Excerpt:
Aren’t the Left supposed to be the tolerant ones?
Supposed to be the smart ones, too, but they keep falling for that “I thought you were supposed to be the tolerant ones” horseshit.
What about dialogue?
Dialogue is for reasonable people acting in good faith. Dialogue is between two acceptable positions. “Taxes need to be raised” vs. “taxes need to be lowered” is grounds for dialogue. “Taxes need to be raised” vs. “Jews should be thrown in ovens” is grounds for a beating.
But isn’t this sinking to their level?
That depends. After you punch the Nazi, do you espouse the tenets of National Socialism?
No.
Then you’re better than a Nazi.