The United States is poised to observe its most divisive inauguration day ever. 65 lawmakers and 28 activists groups are all pledging to protest the inauguration. Nearly 30,000 law enforcement officials are expected to provide security for an estimated crowd of 900,000 onlookers this inauguration day. Make no mistake, this inauguration is poised to be one of the most toxic transitions of power the US has ever witnessed. But what does history tell us about this kind of division? Does a rough inauguration day translate into a difficult presidency?
Donald Trump is entering the Whitehouse with a historically low approval rating after having won the election on negative campaign rhetoric and possible assistance from the Russian government. Opposition to Trump has been growing since he began his campaign but has gained momentum after a controversial election result in which he received 3 million fewer votes than his opponent Hillary Clinton. Trump was able to win in spite of this due to the Electoral College system, which emphasizes voting representatives rather than a simple majority. Trump’s narrow victory underscores a state of disunity between liberals and conservatives that has been growing since the Iraq war and the obstructionist policies a republican congress.
At the center of the Democratic opposition to Trump is Senator and civil rights icon John Lewis of Georgia who rose to prominence in 1960s as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. In an interview last Saturday originally intended to tap Lewis for perspective on Obama’s legacy, Lewis freely broke from questioning to criticize Trump. When asked by NBC’s Chuck Todd if he would forge a relationship with Trump after Obama, Lewis said it would be difficult since he did not “see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” citing Russian involvement in the election. On this basis, and without any coaxing from Todd, Lewis noted he would “not attend the inauguration.” It was a revelation that had little to do with the impetus for the interview, but has since snowballed into a coalition of 65 lawmakers all declaring they will join Lewis in not attending the inauguration.
To find any modern historical comparison of this magnitude, we must go back to the 1973 inauguration of president Richard Nixon, another terribly unpopular president in US history. In 1973, Nixon’s inaugural motorcade was received by an estimated 1000,000 anti-war protestors supported by 80 legislators who boycotted the official ceremony. They demanded the president pull US troops out of the Vietnam conflict, which had been raging for over a decade. Domestic and international pressure eventually forced the hand of US policy makers to end the war despite the lack of a clear victory. What’s more, the conspiracy to steal campaign secrets from the democrats in a scandal known as “Watergate,” would be revealed early in Nixon’s second term resulting in his resignation. The only president to command disapproval ratings rivaling Nixon’s would be George W. Bush who also received a lukewarm inaugural reception.
In 2001, Bush like Trump, was declared an illegitimate president after voting irregularities produced a run-off election that gave him the presidency despite not receiving the majority of the popular vote. Hundreds of protestors lined upon along Pennsylvania Avenue during Bush’s inauguration waving signs that read “Not my President.” By his second term, the controversy only seemed to grow worse for Bush. Only now the nation was in the midst of an illegitimate war in Iraq that hinged upon the assumption Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The problem was that by 2005, the US had taken control of Iraq but could not produce evidence of Saddam’s WMD’s. Like those protesting Nixon decades earlier, thousands of anti-war protestors appeared in Washington for Bush’s 2005 inauguration. Footage shows protestors tearing down flags and scuffling with riot police. According to one report, a protestor even managed to hit the President’s limousine with an egg. Although violent, the protests did not manage to convince Bush and his team to pull out of Iraq. Bush left the Whitehouse sporting abysmal polling numbers, making him one of the least popular president’s in the post war period.
Inaugural protests have not always been relegated to conservatives. Most recently, President Obama faced protest on his first inaugural day in 2009 despite being the most popular president in modern history. Like Trump’s controversial victory earlier this year, questions of legitimacy dogged president Obama from his first days in Washington. Many who opposed Obama’s historic victory felt he had been elected unjustly, but instead of have any real evidence, those who opposed Obama wondered whether he was in fact “American enough” to be elected president. The “birthers” as they became known, demanded Obama reveal his birth certificate in order to prove he was in fact an American citizen - a requirement of any US president to hold office. They showed up at Obama’s 2009 inauguration in scant numbers, holding a mixture of picket signs that denounced the president elect. After inauguration day, the “birther” movement continued throughout Obama’s presidency, eventually gaining high-profile support from Donald J. Trump. After persistent protest from fringe groups, president Obama eventually released his birth certificate in 2011, which revealed he was born in Hawaii. Although the document squashed the “birther” movement among mainstream critics on both sides of the aisle, Trump and others continued peddling conspiracy theories through the rest of Obama’s term.
History shows inaugural protests are not new to American politics, nor is the participation of current or future politicians. But these protests reveal tensions among the electorate that are otherwise not easily expressed through the voting process. They are always passionate and controversial mobilizations of people eager to grab attention and pressure elected officials.
Donald Trump enters the Whitehouse the most controversial president-elect the United States has had, perhaps ever. Expect his brash and controversial style to translate into equally brash and controversial protest from now through his final day in office.