[W]ASHINGTON — On Thursday evening, in the back room of a dimly lit steakhouse near the White House, roughly 20 Donald Trump supporters from Vermont gathered to celebrate November’s Republican victory: the menu was red meat and wine.
The gathered group included Rutland Republican Wendy Wilton, the city treasurer and a former state senator, as well as Joy Limoge of Williston, who ran and lost for a Chittenden County House seat last year.
Darcie Johnston, who ran Trump’s Vermont campaign and is expected to snag a Cabinet job in the Agency of Health and Human Services, was also at the table, sipping on a gin and tonic.
Johnston has been working 12-hour days on Trump’s inaugural committee, coordinating everything from marching band buses to credentials for preachers. Her voice was hoarse Thursday night, but she didn’t care.
“I’m tired,” Johnston said. “But excited.”
Trump won Vermont’s Republican primary last March, but lost the Green Mountain State in the general election to Democrat Hillary Clinton, 58 to 30 percent.
With Trump in the White House, the Vermont supporters were hopeful Trump would tackle issues of concern back home, from the heroin epidemic to the lack of high paying jobs in rural areas.
Speaking hours ahead of the inauguration, the diners agreed that Trump’s first priority, however, should be healing the country’s deep political wounds.
“There’s a big divide here, everyone is in a little cube,” said Anne Galante, a New Haven resident. “You know, it’s I’m black, I’m female, I’m Muslim, I’m tranny, I’m this, I’m that. Yo dudes, we’re all American, so let’s pull the boat together.”
Milton Eaton, an 85-year-old Brattleboro resident who drove to D.C. on Wednesday, also said he hoped for a new era of bipartisan cooperation. He felt while Trump was looking to bridge the political divide, Democratic senators were acting unnecessarily divisive.
“I’ve been very disappointed in our Vermont senators’ kabuki performances in the interviewing of the Cabinet nominees,” Eaton said. “It was nonsense and they knew it.”
Underhill resident Ellie Martin has been actively reaching out to Democrats since her favored candidate won.
Shortly after the election, Martin responded to a call for a bipartisan conversation on Front Porch Forum from Jericho resident and Clinton supporter Matthew Sterns.
Martin, Sterns and others Vermonters of disparate political beliefs have met five times since Trump was elected. Sterns and Martin have also talked politics together on Channel 17.
“In the past we would turn our backs on one another, snub one another,” Martin said between bites of her salad. “But we hugged one another at a town meeting last night. We may disagree on politics, but we are very much friends.”
As food and wine arrived, so did Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, Vermont’s sole representative in the House.
Welch has been in the Democratic minority for years, and is used to working across the aisle. In his re-election bid last year, he ran virtually unopposed, even snagging the Republican nomination too.
Welch’s office obtained inauguration tickets for the Vermont Republicans at the long table, and his visit to the steak house Thursday night was another bipartisan effort.
“I’m excited you are here. I’m excited you support our democracy,” Welch said. “I miss Barack Obama!”
“Trump lost big in Vermont, but a lot of good Vermonters voted for Trump,” Welch told VTDigger as part of a longer conversation about the 45th president and the 115th U.S. congressional session.
While dozens of House Democrats refused to attend Trump’s inauguration, the entire Vermont delegation RSVP’d “yes.”
“It’s rare in human history that you’ve had that continuity of the democratic tradition of people making the decision of who’s going to be the next commander-in-chief, rather than the military making it,” Welch said, explaining why he would attend. “That’s really important.”
Welch spoke of areas where he could cooperate with Trump, and where he vigorously disagreed with the Republican president. A junior member of the House Oversight Oversight Committee, Welch has challenged his Republican chairman, Jason Chaffetz, to investigate Trump’s financial ties across the globe.
“We had an oversight committee that was very aggressive towards President Obama, and candidate Clinton,” Welch said. “Will they have that same energy when it comes to legitimate questions of interest to the American people when it comes to President-elect Trump?”
Welch paused, a bourbon in his hand, seemingly realizing that Trump’s title was about to change.
“Tomorrow, President Trump,” Welch concluded. He then finished his bourbon.
Late Friday morning, at the U.S. Capitol, Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.
Hundreds of thousands of Trump fans shivered in the cold morning air as they waited for the festivities to start, their red “Make America Great Again” baseball hats punctuating a dark, gray sky.
As soon as Trump started his 16-minute speech, rain began to fall.
Trump’s speech was at times defiant and dark — he promised his gathered supporters that “this American carnage stops right here and stops right now.”
Trump’s campaign rhetoric was often divisive and mean-spirited, depicting Mexicans as “rapist,” enemies as “ugly” and the media as “crooked.” He claimed President Obama was not an American citizen, and was therefore illegitimate.
In his Friday inauguration speech, Trump’s rhetoric was more inclusive:
“It’s time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget, that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American flag.
“And whether a child is born in the urban sprawl of Detroit or the wind-swept plains of Nebraska, they look up at the same night sky. They fill their heart with the same dreams, and they are infused with the breath of life by the same almighty creator.
“So to all Americans, in every city near and far, small and large, from mountain to mountain, from ocean to ocean, hear these words. You will never be ignored again. Your voice, your hopes and your dreams will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.”
While Trump preached acceptance, a wave of boos rippled through the crowd throughout the entire remarks of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who was given a slot to speak. When Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ face flashed on the jumbotron screens, he also received loud jeers. As Hillary Clinton took her seat before the proceedings some chanted “Lock her up!”
Many of President Trump’s actions throughout the presidential transition period have not inspired hope that he will be a leader for all.
Trump’s budget blueprint, first reported on Thursday by The Hill, recommends large cuts to the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, as well as eliminating entirely 25 separate grant programs aimed at helping victims of sexual abuse.
Trump’s pick for attorney general, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, among hundreds of other civil and migrants rights organizations.
In Sessions’ confirmation hearings earlier this month, U.S. Rep. John Lewis — a civil rights icon — said the confirmation of Sessions would signal “a return to the dark past.”
Trump is also considering some sort of ban on immigrants from Muslim countries, as well as a registry for people who practice Islam.
Shortly after his inauguration, the White House website was changed on proposals from LGBT rights to climate change.
Trump’s nominee to be labor secretary, Andrew Pudzer, who runs the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurant chains, has called for abolishing the minimum wage, as well as for more automation to replace his employees.
“Machines are always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex or race discrimination case,” Pudzer said.
With Trump’s proposals inciting such negative reactions from so many groups, it was no surprise that thousands protested his inauguration Friday. While the majority of the protests were peaceful, a few hundred protesters got violent, breaking windows and throwing rocks at police. Law enforcement officers used tear gas and stun grenades, and roughly 100 people were arrested.
The Women’s March on Washington, scheduled to take place Saturday, is expected to see as many as 200,000 participants voicing their opposition to Trump’s agenda, and many activist groups are preparing for near ceaseless resistance.
And while those gathered on the streets Friday voiced fierce opposition to Trump’s inauguration, there’s likely one line from the president’s speech they would agree with.
“The time for empty talk is over,” Trump said. “Now arrives the hour for action.”
