More than 30 miles of limescale fencing are being erected throughout the nation’s capital. Concrete barriers are placed at key times. Some roads have already been closed to traffic. Surveillance drones will flood the sky.
But if Washington looks like a war zone again, that’s not necessarily the case. Unlike the last time President-elect Donald J. Trump was sworn in eight years ago, raw tension and angry defiance have given way to accommodation and submission. The Resistance of 2017 turned into the Resignation of 2025.
The mood leading up to Trump’s second inauguration reflects how much things have changed since Trump’s first inauguration. It seems that much of the world is bowing to the new president. Tech moguls rushed to Mar-a-Lago to pay their respects. Billionaires sign seven-figure checks and compete for space at the inaugural ceremony. Some companies are preventative abandon climate and diversity programs to curry favor.
Some Democrats plan to work with the newly reinstated Republican president on low-key issues. Some news agencies are seen as a reorientation to show more deference. The grassroots opposition that brought hundreds of thousands to the streets of Washington to protest Mr. Trump just a day after his inauguration in 2017 generated only a fraction in its aftermath on Saturday.
“Hashtag resistance has turned into hashtag capitulation,” said David Urban, a longtime Republican strategist and Trump ally. “The pink hats are gone and they are being replaced by MAGA hats worn by Black and Brown people.”
Determined protesters who participated in Saturday’s People’s March said they refused to give up, but some sympathized with those who expressed exhaustion over Mr. Trump’s latest victory.
“Why do we have to keep doing this?” asked Lisa Clark, 65, of Akron, Ohio, who also participated in the Women’s March in 2017. “But hey, we’ll do it.” We have been here before and we will come back if necessary.
For both the progressive left and the Never Trump right, this second inauguration upended all assumptions after eight years of fighting Mr. Trump. Their strategies and messages have failed to keep him out of power. And many of them are exhausted and demoralized.
“Democratic leaders have learned that focusing all their energy on one man cannot make a difference,” said Donna Brazile, former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. “It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s not the end. We will rebuild. Resistance to Trumpism will never disappear, but it will manifest differently under Trump 2.0.”
For Team Trump, on the other hand, it is a moment of triumph and celebration. After Mr. Trump left office four years ago, defeated, twice impeached and facing the prospect of multiple criminal investigations, it seemed unlikely that he would return to the White House four years later. So for his camp, this weekend brings a sense of justice.
And this time, Mr. Trump arrives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, not as a fortuitous Electoral College winner who fell short in the popular vote. He is sworn in Monday with momentum propelled by a popular vote victory, albeit with one of the smallest margins of victory since the 19th century rather than the landslide he claims.
“If you’re someone who was here in 2015, 2016, 2017 and you’re here today, you feel vindicated,” Mr. Urban said.
Part of the deference shown to Mr. Trump by politics, the media and the business world today comes from a broader sense that popular opinion may be more on the side of Mr. Trump than she thought. Perhaps, from this perspective, Mr. Trump, however flawed, has grasped something important in suggesting that the country needs to fundamentally rethink some of the ways it does things.
A new investigation published Saturday by the New York Times and Ipsos found that even many Americans who dislike Mr. Trump agree with some of his diagnoses of the country’s problems and some of his signature policy prescriptions, including the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Discouraged opponents therefore face a period of introspection before returning to the arena. “The humiliating reality of a popular vote victory for him requires a lot of introspection and withdrawal,” said Patrick Gaspard, president of the Center for American Progress, a progressive research group.
The mood on the eve of this second inauguration is different, he said, because progressives were stunned when Mr. Trump beat former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016, but not as surprised when he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
“The activist response usually comes from a bodily shock – something happens, people are stunned, bewildered or outraged, and this visceral reaction happens and metastasizes,” Mr. Gaspard said. “It usually comes from shock. Nothing that happened here was shocking.
Indeed, he added, President Biden’s political problems and his insistence on running for a second term have long drained the energy of his supporters. “For the center-left, we are facing a long-awaited slow train wreck,” Mr. Gaspard said. “From the moment Joe Biden announced that he would run for a second term, we could sense in our big tent and our coalition an immediate deflation setting in. »
As the resistance rethinks its approach, the powerful move closer to the returning leader. The eagerness of tech moguls like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg wooing Mr. Trump may not reveal any new personal affection for the new president, but it certainly underscores their analysis of society’s changing tides and their calculation of how best to protect themselves from an unstable, self-conscious leader. revenge. Companies that have abandoned diversity, equity, and inclusion policies without even being asked are anticipating where the future lies.
In returning to office, Mr. Trump has discovered that he doesn’t even need to act to force his adversaries to adapt, back down, or bend in his direction in a strategy of self-preservation. He already manages to get what he wants just by being himself.
News networks are changing their lineups, editorial pages are changing their stance at the behest of wealthy owners, and corporate media parent companies are changing their minds. settle lawsuits with Mr. Trump or plans to do so. Mr. Zuckerberg’s Meta abandoned fact-checking in a nod to a fact-challenged president.
Unlike his predecessor James B. Comey, during Mr. Trump’s first term, Christopher A. Wray, the FBI director, did not wait to be fired but resigned of his own accord. Special prosecutor Jack Smith did not wait to be ordered to drop his investigation into Mr. Trump, but did so on his own, preemptively.
Democrats like Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan preach the virtues of cooperation. Seven Congressional Democrats Who Boycotted Mr. Trump’s Inauguration in 2017 told Politico they would attend this one. Republicans who sometimes stood up to Mr. Trump early in his first term are now going out of their way to confirm nominees they privately disdain.
At the same time, behind this wave of acquiescence lies an undercurrent of fear in Washington. Many of those threatened with retaliation by Mr. Trump are spending this weekend dreading what is to come. An FBI under the thumb of Kash Patel, the pro-Trump warrior awaiting confirmation by the Senate, could become the office of revenge. Mr Patel, in a book he wrote, published a list of 60 people he considers targeted by ‘deep state’ actors and vowed to ‘go after’ the media for what he considers to be their lies.
Anticipation changed the environment. Some critics who once spoke out against Mr. Trump are staying off television, not posting on social media and refusing to speak on the record to reporters to avoid attracting his attention. If they keep a low profile, they reason, he might not pursue them.
But pockets of resistance remain in Washington. Sarah Longwell, a Republican political strategist who is now publisher of The Bulwark, a conservative online publication and haven for the latest Never Trumpers, said: that she found that there is “a huge appetite” for heterodox views, “while more and more people capitulate.”
One reason Washington feels different heading into Trump’s next term, she said, is that this time he is a lame duck who, under the Constitution’s 22nd Amendment, cannot can’t show up again – although every now and then he makes jokes, if they are. jokes, about finding a way to stay in power even after four years.
“There are a million reasons why it’s different,” Ms. Longwell said, “but no one is trying to prepare to beat Trump for a second term. They’re trying to figure out how to build themselves up, how to win again in two years and four years.”
In a way, she says, it’s no longer just about waging war against him, but waiting for him: “People are just wondering: How are you going to endure the next four years?”
Aishvarya Kavi reports contributed.