As President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration inches closer, residents of Washington DC want to flee and not be around “that sort of hostile negative energy”.
With only 2 days left till Trump assumes office, residents are planning to stay away from the event.
Alejandra Whitney-Smith, a DC resident, has already made plans to leave the city and spend a week in a cabin without technology, the Guardian reported. “It [inauguration weekend] coincides with my birthday weekend, which I usually do spend in DC, but when the election happened, I told myself, ‘Oh, no, I can’t be here,'” she said.
Speaking about the re-election of Trump, she said it “represents the ugly side of America that people don’t want to acknowledge”.
She recalled the fear that crept up in Smith when her mother was working at the Library of Congress during the January 6th US Capitol attack by supporters of Trump two months after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.
She further plans to do some vision boarding, reflection and reconnection, during the inauguration weekend.
Expressing her dismay she admitted that she had a lot of faith that people of the United States witnessed what happened during Trump’s first term and would not “regress”, but also added that she knew people of America were not ready for their first Black woman president.
“But I also know the reality of living in this country as a Black woman. As much as I wanted Harris to win, there was something in me that still told me that America is not ready for their first Black woman president. Not only that, she was running against Donald Trump who has an almost cult-like following that is so powerful”, she said.
Tia Butler, another DC resident says that the memories of the January 6 riot and encountering pro-life protesters after the 2020 election makes her “not want to be in the city during the inauguration festivities.” She says that her views are very different from the supporters of the president-elect. “It says to me that we’d rather have a criminal leading our country than a person of color, or a criminal rather than a woman”, she added.
But this showcases one side of America. On the flip side, many conservatives and Republican supporters are excited about the inauguration. As of Wednesday, hotels in the city were 70% booked and fetching $900 to $1,500 a night.
Having said that, Trump does not have the best relationship with Washington DC. He labelled DC as a “filthy and crime ridden embarrassment to our nation” and has even vowed to radically rebuild the capital, recruiting billionaire Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce.
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