Donald Trump’s Inauguration: Reckoning With the Reality of Four More Years

It was four years ago today that Donald Trump left Washington in disgrace. The country, still in the midst of a pandemic, was now also grappling with the tragedy of January 6, an assault on democracy itself. Under fire within his own party, and banished from Facebook and Twitter, Trump looked increasingly isolated. He opted to skip Joe Biden’s inauguration and retreat to Mar-a-Lago, telling supporters at Joint Base Andrews, “We will be back in some form.” Few could’ve predicted then, as Air Force One took flight to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” that form would be as the 47th president of the United States.

There’s no need to rehash all the particulars of Trump’s return to power—a historic political comeback we chronicled in real time—or relitigate the 2024 election. As of noon today, Trump is the president again, and he appears intent on carrying out a “pants-pissingly terrifying” agenda, as Bess Levin put it—beginning with a “shock and awe” campaign that’ll likely feature mass deportations. Trump reenters the White House with the wind at his back: a Republican Party, remade in his image, controlling the House and Senate; a Democratic Party trying to plot a path forward; a Supreme Court that has empowered him; and billionaire tech and media elites either in his corner or showing little appetite for resistance.

It’s a lot to take in, but fortunately, we have a stellar group of Vanity Fair writers and editors meeting this consequential moment for America with insight and imagination. Here’s where their heads are at on day one of a second Trump presidency. — Michael Calderone, Hive editor.

Radhika Jones, editor in chief

I find myself thinking about the first Inauguration Day I remember: Ronald Reagan’s in 1981. There was no Martin Luther King Jr. Day yet, but I was sick and stayed home from school, so I watched it on TV. I was old enough to be aware of the Iranian hostage crisis, and of course that was the day the hostages were released, after 444 days in captivity. As a seven-year-old, I would not have put it together, but in retrospect that gesture—Iran freeing the hostages just minutes after Reagan was sworn in—goes hand in hand with the pageantry underlying the transfer of power at the White House. It was driven at least in part by the Iranian regime’s hatred of President Jimmy Carter; even though his administration had done the heavy lifting of coming to an agreement, Iran still had the power to deny him a resolution. I’m thinking about what Donald Trump’s second inauguration signals to the rest of the world, and what gestures the rest of the world will perform, whether to provoke or appease or delight him. And I’m thinking about how the existential threats of my ’80s childhood—nuclear war, acid rain, AIDS—have morphed into the threats of today.

Claire Howorth, executive editor, features & development

I won’t mince words: I’m scared. They mean business this time, in all the ways we know—taking control of women’s bodies; deporting immigrants, including many who are legally here; peeling up the checks and balances that have Scotch-taped our republic together thus far. So, yeah. All that. But in a less alarmed arena, I’m genuinely curious to see how Trumpism will reflect and refract our new maniculture. There’s no more monoculture, so who are the celebrities and villains in the pop cultures, plural? The opening salvo: Carrie Underwood, Jake Paul, and the Village People? What are the great American novels of the Trumpocene II? How will visual art—and the people who buy it—respond? Let’s see what the hell this looks like, and whether the artists and arbiters bring their A-games in capturing and holding broader public interest.

Gabriel Sherman, special correspondent

For a politician who thrives on chaos and conflict, Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign was remarkably free of both. Many people, myself included, anticipated Trump would bring this newfound discipline to governing. Trump’s advisers vowed to populate a second Trump administration with loyalists who would carry out Trump’s agenda in lockstep. “The backstabbers who were around in 2016 won’t be in this next White House,” Trump’s senior campaign adviser Jason Miller told me last year.

That obviously hasn’t happened. Since Trump’s victory, his transition team has split into factions that have warred over policy decisions and Cabinet appointments. The battle between billionaires Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessent to become Trump’s Treasury secretary was reportedly particularly fierce. On the one hand, we’ve seen this show before. Covering Trumpworld felt in the past like writing about a Game of Thrones episode. Trump surrounded himself with huge personalities who feuded constantly. A staple of political reporting during the first Trump administration was the anonymously sourced narrative filled with in-the-room details of West Wing intrigue.

But the civil war that’s engulfed Trump 2.0 is fundamentally different: It’s happening in public and on the record. In recent weeks, Trump allies Steve Bannon and Elon Musk have been fighting to steer the MAGA agenda in Trump’s second term. Bannon has advocated for aggressive immigration crackdowns, populist economics (even tax hikes!), and anti-“woke” values. Musk, meanwhile, has promoted spending cuts and H-1B visas for highly skilled tech workers. What’s new is that the debate is happening on the record. They each control a powerful MAGA media platform (the War Room podcast for Bannon, X for Musk). And they’ve used their megaphones to attack each other’s agendas, at times in viciously personal terms. On War Room earlier this month, Bannon said Musk had “the maturity of an 11-year-old…. He can’t take criticism.” On X, Musk fired back at Bannon and other critics of H-1B visas. “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B. Take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”

So far Trump has largely remained on the sidelines of this cage match. At some point, though, Trump will have to referee. It won’t be an easy decision. Bannon has a spiritual bond with the MAGA base, but Musk is the world’s richest human. Musk spent $277 million to get Trump reelected, and Trump will surely want to tap into Musk’s fortune to promote his presidency. As Trump’s second term begins, I will be watching closely to see which of the two combatants Trump sides with.

Michael Hogan, executive digital director

My colleague Joe Hagan made a great point in one of our postelection Hive meetings: The question of what Democrats should do now is really dependent on what Trump does. There is a version of his agenda that I do believe could be broadly popular and make the people who voted for him feel validated in their choice. That probably entails taking firm but reasonable steps to curtail unauthorized immigration, introducing baseline efficiency and accountability to the federal bureaucracy, and resetting our relationship with allies to recognize the fact that the US is no longer realistically capable of defending all of what we used to call the free world. Instead, I fear Trump and his loyalists will overinterpret their mandate, try to “shock and awe” the media with spectacularly cruel policies, and carry out indefensible campaigns of vengeance. If they do all that, I wonder how Democrats and the public will react. Will people continue to lick their wounds, or will we see a resistance campaign that learns from past mistakes and provides an effective check on Trump’s extraordinary power?

Elise Jordan, MSNBC/NBC News political analyst

Since Donald Trump supersedes political labels and isn’t even really a conservative or a Republican, I want to be delusionally hopeful that in his second term he can leverage his political superpower over his followers and enact common sense reforms that no other politician could touch, starting with cutting regulations and government waste at home and in our foreign policy and defense budgets.

I’m fascinated by Susie Wiles and hope that the first female chief of staff is the driving force behind a second Trump term steeped in pragmatism. Though the bar is admittedly low, Trump’s behavior on the campaign trail was sometimes relatively muted compared to years past because he decided he wanted to win. If he wants to be a consequential president and lead America out of our era of stagnation, he needs a moderating force at his side who can make Washington work. Wiles helped get him there on the campaign trail, so let’s hope she’s effective in the White House.

A lot of “ifs,” indeed.

Eric Lutz, contributing editor

Before 2016, Donald Trump was basically just a tabloid buffoon—a cultural shorthand for a ridiculous, upward-failing grifter. That made his victory, and the presidency he seemed to fall into, a discordant shock: “The Apprentice guy? In the White House? “This is not normal,” went the Resistance refrain. But over the last decade, his main identity has been as a political figure—even as he hawks NFTs and sneakers—and his brand of politics, if not exactly normal, has become its own kind of norm, particularly for a generation of voters perhaps too young to remember him as a punch line. He still is, of course, but the joke isn’t quite as funny as he once again ascends to power. It’ll be a challenging four years; some of the most malicious, power-hungry people in the country are going to be having their innings. And everyone dispirited and outraged by that needs to find a way not only to counter the immediate dangers Trump poses, but to address the conditions that have allowed such a man to rise and flourish.

Katherine Eban, special correspondent

If the COVID-19 pandemic should have taught us anything, it’s that positive health outcomes require social cohesion. Take Japan, for example. As a society, its population wore masks, took vaccines, and generally followed public health directives without complaint. It had by far the lowest death rate, per capita, among the group of advanced democracies called the G7.

The US, however, topped the charts, with a death rate roughly seven times as high. Behind those numbers, the pandemic tore us apart, igniting furious debates that are still raging over personal autonomy, vaccine safety, and scientific expertise. Now, some of the biggest igniters of those debates are set to inherit the nation’s sprawling health apparatus, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a longtime vaccine skeptic—set to “go wild on health,” in Trump’s words.

There is much in Kennedy’s vaguely defined Make America Healthy Again platform that makes sense. Zero out sugary drinks from government nutrition programs. End the revolving door of FDA regulators who go on to work in the pharmaceutical industry. There is also much that alarms public health experts and makes no sense, like eliminating the polio vaccine.

Skepticism from the sidelines is one thing. It’s another thing entirely coming out of a government megaphone. Will this band of insurgents sow further distrust in vaccines long believed to be safe and effective? How will they actually protect the populace, if faced with a bona fide public health crisis, like a bird flu pandemic?

Buckle up. This will be an experiment the likes of which we’ve never seen.

Katie Herchenroeder, contributing writer on gender and politics

Shortly after Donald Trump—who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women and has been found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll (and has denied all the allegations)—was elected, some men on social media assailed women with sexist epithets (“whore” or “cunt”) and threatened to rape them. Days later, I wrote a story titled, “Emboldened Men Celebrate Donald Trump’s Win by Hurling Attacks on Women Online.”

“Hey, bitch, we control your bodies! Guess what? Guys win again,” Nick Fuentes, who describes himself as a “proud incel,” said, using an epithet that Trump himself reportedly employed to describe his election opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, during the campaign. (After I wrote about Trump allegedly calling Harris a “bitch” and his long history with that word, an account on X called me a “slut,” “nasty,” and a “mut.”) Last week a top banker, saying he felt “liberated” yet still opting for anonymity, rejoiced that “we can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting canceled…It’s a new dawn.” On Joe Rogan’s podcast, which Trump spent hours on months earlier, Mark Zuckerberg publicly longed for a more masculine work environment.

As a new Trump era begins, I’m thinking of what men now feel comfortable saying online, the women—old and young—who read their words, and how a swell of virtual misogyny spreads into schools, offices, and bedrooms.

Chris Smith, contributing editor

What I imagine will be going through Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts’s head on the day of:

Concentrate on the words, Roberts. Don’t get distracted by whatever is going on with Trump’s hair. Damn, Barron has gotten really tall.

“Please raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

Good. Stay steady. Don’t think about the fact that you, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, are swearing in a convicted felon.

“I, Donald John Trump, do solemnly swear…”

Speaking of swearing, what did he mean by that crack about the TikTok ruling just before we came out here?

“…that I will faithfully execute…”

Last year we gave him immunity. Probably gave him the presidency too. Isn’t that enough? Don’t kid yourself, Roberts. Of course he’ll be back for more, he’ll keep pushing boundaries.

“…the office of president of the United States…”

In 2019 we said he couldn’t add a citizenship question to the census, and he seriously considered doing it anyway, until his lawyers talked him out of it. But there’s no Don McGahn this time around. What if he just defies us on a birthright citizenship ruling? Or on medication abortion? Or transgender rights? What do we do then to limit the damage? Focus, Roberts!

“…and will to the best of my ability…”

Yeah, well…

“…preserve, protect, and defend…”

That time I made a public comment about him in 2018, trying to defend the Court as above politics—what did he tweet? “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges.’” Won’t make that mistake again.

“…the Constitution of the United States…”

But the tough words I used in my 2024 year-end report about public officials “regrettably” attempting to intimidate judges—surely he got the message, right?

“So help me God.”

All that time in the Harvard Law library. Then clerking for Rehnquist, working my way up the Court ranks. The hours listening to Alito whine about his wife’s stupid flags. Now I’m about to turn 70—and it’s this guy and the next four years that are going to define my legacy. Amazing.

“Congratulations, Mr. President.”

Whew, he didn’t give me the death grip handshake. Do I really need to stop by the after-party in Clarence’s RV?

Kathryn Joyce, investigative reporter who wrote, mostly recently, on the “Catholic right’s celebrity-conversion industrial complex”

Several years ago, when I first began reporting on Republican attacks on education, one advocate I spoke to compared what Governor Ron DeSantis was doing to K–12 public schools in Florida to what had happened in Chile under Pinochet, as the effects of dismantling a public good continued long after the dictatorship had ended. “It’s like Humpty Dumpty,” she told me. “Once you get the system to fall, you can’t put it back together again.”

I’ve been thinking about that line a lot lately. Certainly in terms of how right-wing attacks on education at all levels are going to continue and escalate, with what DeSantis did to Florida’s New College serving as an indirect model for other states and now the federal government. But also so many other systems, public and private, that we take for granted but are actually incredibly fragile.

I’m also thinking a lot about how the Christian right, in all its varieties, is going to continue to be a dynamic source of badness, but also about how religious bodies themselves are fragile institutions. And as nationalistic, and white nationalistic, versions of religion become an increasingly formal part of the Trump administration, and sympathetic state governments, there will continue to be fights for the souls of those institutions that are worth our attention.

James Robenalt, author, lawyer, and presidential historian

On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson delivered his first inaugural address in the new capital city of Washington, DC. He spoke at a time when political parties were being birthed, threatening to tear apart the nation, still in its infancy. John Adams, a Federalist and the country’s second president, was defeated by Jefferson, his Democratic-Republican vice president.

The campaign was beyond ugly. Jefferson’s Federalist opponents charged in newspapers that he was an atheist and warned that “there is scarcely a possibility that we shall escape a civil war. Murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will be openly taught and practiced.” The passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts by the Federalist-controlled legislature gave President Adams the power to imprison and deport noncitizens and criminalized the making of false and malicious statements about the federal government—resulting in Democratic-Republican publishers being prosecuted and jailed. As worrisome, the election of 1800 ended in a tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr, his supposed vice presidential pick. (The Constitution had to be amended to fix this anomaly.) The election was thrown to the House of Representatives—controlled by Federalists—to pick the winner. Violence and “stolen election” charges flew. Jefferson was selected just weeks before his inauguration.

To calm fears that the Democratic-Republicans would seek retribution against Federalists and potentially undo the Constitution, Jefferson deified Federalist-aligned George Washington—who had just died—praised “an overruling Providence,” and promised to restore the Constitution the people had originally ratified. His famous tagline became: “We are called by different names, brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists.”

“We are all MAGA, we are all Democrats” somehow doesn’t strike the same chord of conciliation. Whatever the case, the nation may be at a threshold nearly as pivotal as the one it faced in 1801. America will owe its future not only to the resilience of the Constitution, but to the moral fiber of its citizens and politicians.

Jon Skolnik, Hive associate editor

Last year, when I interviewed fascism expert Timothy Snyder ahead of the release of his new book, On Freedom, he schooled me on a little theory known as “anticipatory obedience.” It goes as follows: When people fear a regime change, they obey in advance.

This nugget of wisdom has been bouncing around the back of my brain ever since then, as I’ve watched the leaders of corporate America hedge their bets against a second Trump term—even before it’s started. We all saw how Jeff Bezos blocked The Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris; how Sam Altman and Tim Cook each donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund; how Mark Zuckerberg eliminated some of Meta’s content-moderation policies and its fact-checking operations under the guise of free speech; and how Elon Musk transformed into, well, whatever he is now.

That men of their financial stature—whose collective net worth is more than a trillion dollars—feel the need to cozy up to a would-be dictator is concerning in its own right. What’s even more chilling, though, is how far the mighty have fallen: During Trump’s first race in 2016 and term in 2017, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk, Altman and Cook all took a stand against him in some way or another—either by backing his then presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, or by going toe-to-toe with him in the public square. Fast-forward to the present, and the entire cohort is in Trump’s corner, their livelihoods safeguarded (for now) by a conscience of convenience. At what cost? Time will tell. But it’s safe to say that billionaires aren’t likely to bear the brunt of it.

Mark McKinnon, columnist and veteran political operative

As I think about America’s 2024 inauguration of President Trump, I can’t help but feel like not just a page is turning in American history, but an entire chapter. Or maybe it’s a whole new book. And I’m feeling wistful for what may never be again.

The thing about democracy is that if you are a citizen and a voter, you may not like the outcome, but you have to accept it. I mean, it’s not like a bunch of people urged on by a corrupt leader stormed the Capitol to try to overthrow a free and fair election.

As much as people like me don’t like it and can’t believe it, the American people have spoken clearly. And what is it they want, and what are they getting? I think in many ways it boils down to survival. We just live in an increasingly dangerous, complicated, and difficult world. And Americans, like many others around the globe, are scared. And when we’re scared, we care less about what we used to care about, which I’d argue was the common good of our society and our alliances around the world, and more about what’s best for me, us, the US, and damn the consequences.

So as I watch this inauguration, I don’t feel like I’m giving up, but I do feel like I’m giving in. I’m conceding that America is sailing in a very new and different direction. And while I am a passenger, I’m not on board with it.