“Macho Types Wanted: Must Dance And Have A Moustache.” The disco producers who placed that classified ad in a New York newspaper in 1979 could hardly have guessed that 46 years later, in a packed basketball arena in Washington, DC, the gay archetypes they were seeking would be called onstage by the president-elect of the United States on the eve of his inauguration. As Village People launched into YMCA, Donald Trump remained with them, swaying from side to side with his signature take on dad-dancing.
It was just one of a host of surreal moments in the course of a disturbing week. The transfer of executive power in the US takes place on a grander scale than in other democracies, with thousands of federal jobs changing hands and a level of pomp and ceremony befitting the world’s most powerful nation. This time, though, despite all the solemnity and protocol, it felt more like the sort of wrenching regime change that accompanies a coup d’etat.
Prelude
It began last weekend, well before the inauguration with a fusillade of news stories. After 15 months of slaughter, a ceasefire would come into effect in Gaza on Sunday morning. At around the same time, 160 million American TikTok users would see their app go dark, and in the closing hours of his presidency, Joe Biden would bizarrely and unconvincingly claim that the long-stalled Equal Rights Amendment was suddenly now part of the US constitution.
The unmistakable shadow of Trump loomed over all. Biden snorted when the press corps asked whether the Gaza ceasefire was his achievement or his successor’s. But the deal that was agreed had been on the table since last summer. The new element was the intervention of Trump’s Middle East envoy.
The TikTok ban, passed with massive bipartisan support, signed by Biden and upheld unanimously by the supreme court, was cast into doubt by Trump’s announcement that he would defer its implementation. When the app reappeared, it carried a message thanking the Trump for his help.
Biden’s last-minute constitutional intervention prefigured an imminent attempt by Trump to dispense with a right to citizenship enshrined in the constitution since the Civil War.
Flurry of pardons
On Monday, as freezing dawn broke on Washington, DC, Biden announced what seemed a final flurry of dramatic pardons. Health tsar Anthony Fauci, former chair of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley and the members of the congressional committee that had investigated the US Capitol riot were all granted protection against criminal charges. Pardon power is a royal prerogative inherited by the founding fathers from their former colonial masters. It is also one of the most obvious ways in which an American president resembles an absolute monarch. That would become more apparent as the day wore on.
The use of pardons as a shield against a vengeful incoming administration is one symptom of the degradation of the American constitutional order. Others include the politicisation of the judiciary, immovable gridlock in Congress and, thanks to a recent supreme court decision, an expanded definition of presidential immunity that would have kept Richard Nixon in power after Watergate.
On the surface, though, all was calm and decorous as Joe and Jill Biden welcomed Donald and Melania Trump “home” to the White House before taking the short trip to the Capitol. Sitting with the Trumps in the armoured presidential limousine, Biden knew one last announcement would be released minutes before the transfer of power: pardons for what Trump supporters call the “Biden Crime Family” – his brother James and his wife, Sara, his sister Valerie and her husband, John Owens, and his brother Francis.
The scene in the Rotunda resembled a particularly lavish Renaissance court painting. Assembled under the vast dome were former presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, justices of the supreme court, members of Congress, the new president’s family, and controversial cabinet picks including conspiracy theorist Robert Kennedy jnr (no stranger to epochal presidential moments). Many eyes were drawn to the gaggle of middle-aged men standing one row behind the Trumps. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Sundar Pichai stood as visible proof of the dramatic political realignment by some of the richest people in the world. With TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew two rows back, the word’s information gatekeepers were all there.
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Golden age for America
While not nearly as dystopian as his “American carnage” speech of eight years ago, Trump’s address broke with convention. With Biden now among their number, the four former presidents sat stony-faced as he attacked their records and bragged that a new golden age for America “starts today”. Alongside the aggression, sarcasm and triumphalism, there were hints of the techno-imperialism that has recently been added to the Maga mix, with talk of “manifest destiny”, overseas expansion and planting the American flag on Mars. The billionaires looked on benignly.
Within minutes of the oath, the official White House website was transformed. Goodbye Joe Biden. Hello Top Gun-esque montage of screaming jets and soaring eagles. Across the world, the cartoonish new presidential portrait went up on embassy walls.
There were, in fact, two inauguration addresses. After completing the first, the new president made his way to address the overflow audience of lesser lights such as his former political rival, Florida governor Ron De Santis. That second “alt-speech” was more belligerent and uncompromising than the first.
Executive orders
After that came a whirlwind of executive orders, social engagements, a first trip to the Oval Office, more signings accompanied by free-form banter with the White House press corps, yet another rally with yet more signings followed by visits to three inauguration galas. Advance publicity had suggested up to 200 executive orders would be signed in the first 24 hours. In the end it was 196. The contrast with the previous administration was deliberate and stark. When Biden dropped out of the race last year, Democrats hoped voters’ concerns about age would transfer to the 78-year-old Trump. But whatever his mental state, his stamina is undeniable.
It will take time to sort out what all these executive orders amount to. Some will be challenged successfully in the courts. Others will prove purely symbolic. But many will have a profound impact on people’s lives. The most far-reaching and immediate relate to border crossings, the asylum process and refugee applications. All existing processing channels are now temporarily shut down or completely abolished. One order removing the right to “birthright citizenship” for people born in the US to parents who were not there legally will probably be found to be unconstitutional. But it keeps the outrage machine whirring nonetheless.
Most shocking was the blanket clemency for nearly all those charged with or convicted of crimes during the Capitol riot. That was not what JD Vance had promised was going to happen a few days earlier. The vice-president had predicted a measured, case by case approach. But Republican sources confided that Trump, infuriated by Biden’s last-minute pardons – or empowered by them – had decided to go for broke. Among those walking free are rioters who violently assaulted Capitol police, along with leaders of neo-fascist militias such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Polling shows these pardons are unpopular, which might not matter much now but could become a factor as this presidency wears on.
Many of the executive orders focus on hot-button culture war battles such as diversity programmes and gender identity. Some are simply there to roil the left. Nobody asked for the highest mountain in the US to revert to its old name of Mount McKinley, but it’s going to happen anyway. Other orders are deadly serious. There will be high-profile sweeps targeting undocumented immigrants in Democrat-supporting cities in the weeks ahead.
Others again are obscure but highly consequential. Schedule F would reclassify the employment status of more than 50,000 federal workers, making it easier to fire and replace them with loyalists.
It’s noticeable how muted the response has been to all of this. There is none of the surge in news consumption that boosted the coffers of the New York Times and others in 2017. “It’s unfortunate that ‘resistance’ is totally demoralised and demobilised because unlike in 2017 he actually is purging the security services and granting impunity to a violent mob,” observed commentator Matthew Yglesias.
Internationally, as expected, there was withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, the World Health Organisation and other international frameworks that the US had been instrumental in setting up in the first place. And there was a first shot across Vladimir’s Putin’s bow, threatening dire consequences if Russia does not end its “stupid” war in Ukraine. There have also been threatening noises about tariffs and tax changes but no action yet.
Reality bites
As the week wore on it settled into what may become a familiar rhythm. Shiny baubles for the faithful. Minor outrages for the news cycle. Musk gets accused of giving a Nazi salute. Trump attacks the “nasty” bishop of Washington. So far, the promise of “shock and awe” has been kept. But you can’t run the US on executive orders and shock and awe alone. The three coequal branched of government are battered but still stand, for the moment. Trump will have to deal with Congress and the courts as well as the economic realities that contributed to his re-election.
When Village People were storming the charts for the first time with YMCA, a young New York property developer named Donald Trump was learning the ropes from his mentor, political fixer Roy Cohn. On Thursday, Sebastian Stan and Jeremy Strong received Oscar nominations for their performances as Trump and Cohn in The Apprentice. In the film, Cohn tells Trump his three rules of winning: “always attack, never admit wrongdoing, and always claim victory”.
Nothing has changed since.
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