I’m Cancelling My Trip To Washington, DC For Trump’s Inauguration…

With the swearing-in ceremony moved indoors, I am cancelling my trip to Washington, DC for the second inauguration of Donald Trump. There’s no need to fly to Washington, DC just to watch it on a screen…

With Swearing-In Moved Inside, I’m Skipping DC For 2025 Inauguration

I attend every presidential inauguration not as a sycophant but as an American citizen and political scientist. Long before January 6, 2021, I celebrated the smooth transition of power on this blog as a hallmark of the American experiment in ordered liberty.

Four years ago, you might recall I flew to DC anyway even though the public was disinvited from the inauguration due to COVID-19 concerns. Then, I thought that I could find a way in and I thought it would be newsworthy to cover what DC looked like under military control. I never got it, the District of Columbia was quite a sight to behold.

> Read More: Photo Essay – The 59th Presidential Inauguration

With a storm hitting DC tomorrow and below-freezing temperatures expected on Monday morning, the President-Elect moved his swearing-in ceremony indoors. That means me…and the thousands of other ticket holders to view the swearing-in ceremony from outside the US Capitol…are suddenly holding commemorative souvenirs rather than real tickets.

My mom and dad, newly married, attended the 1985 inauguration of Ronald Reagan in Washington, DC which was also moved indoors due to frigid weather. At least they had inaugural ball tickets and made a fun weekend out of it.

40 years later, I do know there would be some interesting stories I could write about the weekend festivities and I was also planning on attending the “One America, One Light” prayer service at the Capital One arena tomorrow and the National Prayer Service on Tuesday at the National Cathedral, but I just canceled my United Airlines tickets to DC and will sit this one out.

Oh, I’ll cover it on Monday with some thoughts that will hopefully be tangentially travel-related but I’ll watch it from the comfort of a screen rather than watching a jumbotron in the frigid cold or watching it from my mobile phone in the lobby of the Willard Hotel.

I’ll very much miss going, but unless you can convince me otherwise, I don’t see the point considering the outdoor events have been canceled and I have no chance of getting inside the Capitol.