Are you jazzed for Inauguration Day 2025?
Me too. In the same way I am jazzed for a colonoscopy. No point in wrestling reality. On Monday, at high noon during a polar vortex, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the next U.S. president. The election denier, convicted felon, robber baron, pathological liar, flip-flop artist and cult leader will place his hand on a bible and solemnly swear to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution.
And, somewhere, Jesus will slap his forehead and laugh out loud.
This ceremony will be like watching Nick Cannon take a vow of celibacy.
Media reports have flagged the “increased star power” compared to Trump’s first inauguration. That’s not hard. In 2016, even hobos along the Potomac with half-decent singing voices shunned the pomp and pageantry.
So when some of Trump’s favourite singers, including Elton John and Céline Dion, balked at serenading the new president, he was stuck with 3 Doors Down, Jackie Evancho and Big & Rich.
It was like going to Tiffany and finding nothing but cubic zirconia.
But Monday’s main event — and the related sideshows this weekend — will definitely feature a talent upgrade. Carrie Underwood is not an A-lister. But she is a solid B-minus who will perform “America the Beautiful.” Lee Greenwood, a country crooner and travelling bible salesman, will belt out a tune. The national anthem falls to Christopher Macchio, a tenor with a hauntingly beautiful voice and dubious political smarts.
But let’s not be divisive before this historic 60th inauguration. Let us instead make an emergency trip to Shoppers Drug Mart to stock on up on cotton balls we can stuff into our ears before Kid Rock morphs into a human noise machine as his blaring guitar destroys our will to live.
The Village People are also on the marquee. Their 1978 hit “Y.M.C.A.” is a Trump fave. He plays it at rallies. He plays it on the plane. He plays in the tanning bed. He plays it while rage-posting at 3 a.m. That disco anthem has inspired the viral “Trump Dance,” in which his herky-jerky movements resemble a malfunctioning robot milking a terrified cow.
My TDS must be acting up again. We will get through the next four years! Or I will soon be living under an assumed identity in Mumbai as a rickshaw driver.
Other luminaries will include former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who hopefully does not hit on Melania. She will be vulnerable — there in body, not spirit. Vice-president Kamala Harris will bravely plaster on the fake smile she has practised since Nov. 6.
One notable no-show is former first lady Michelle Obama.
I commend her principled stance. You can’t spend months calling Trump an existential threat to democracy and then gown it up for tea and finger foods. This also frees up room for global right-wing stars, including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, was hoping to attend but, on Thursday, a court rejected his bid to regain his passport. It was confiscated after he allegedly plotted a coup.
What an outrage. An election denier can’t celebrate the electoral success of a fellow election denier? What’s next? A serial killer can’t attend the funeral of another serial killer?
I would not be surprised if there is a cameo by a travelling entourage of Xi Jinping, Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Lord Voldemort, Thanos, Hannibal Lecter and the Joker.
Justin Trudeau will not attend. He will be at a retreat with Canadian leaders, where he will darkly contemplate the possibility of a Governor Wayne Gretzky or steep tariffs on designer socks. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will be there, likely with a gift of crude petroleum and the keys to Edmonton as Kevin O’Leary smirks in the background while trying to sell crypto to Barron.
The inauguration dais will also carry the hefty egos of many broligarchs, the Silicon Valley scoundrels who see Trump as an empty vessel in which they can deregulate, cut taxes and profit.
Hopefully, shadow president Elon Musk ditches his stinky Occupy Mars T-shirt and puts on a tux. Jeff Bezos will sit there with perfect posture and the visage of a glazed doughnut as his Washington Post newsroom implodes amid internal strife. Mark Zuckerberg will show up in a karate robe and tacky gold chain to telegraph his alpha energy even though he is the Betamax of all tech weasels.
Other inauguration festivities will include fireworks, candlelight dinners and more balls than a Cinderella trilogy. There’s a Liberty Inaugural Ball, Commander-in-Chief Ball and Starlight Ball. No word yet on a Grifter Ball, though that’s what the next four years are all about.
So that’s it. This free world’s next epoch officially begins on Monday.
Good night, and good luck.
