The New Yorker:

The grubby part of a glistening Inauguration Day played out just before 9 A.M., at Joint Base Andrews, where Donald Trump had come to say goodbye to the Presidency. Or almost goodbye. He was still entitled to take one last flight on Air Force One, to Florida. Mar-a-Lago awaited. Trump’s adult children, their partners, and a few of his grandchildren stood in line for review, near a small crowd of supporters or, perhaps, curiosity seekers. There were also cannons set up to fire a salute for Trump—who had, two weeks earlier, sent a mob to try to overturn the election—or at least to make some noise for him.

When Trump came to the microphone, he had remarkably little to say, and even he seemed to sense it. “It’s been something very special. We accomplished a lot,” he said. There was an echo in those words. In a video released while the mob was still roaming the halls of the Capitol, Trump called its members “very special” people. The repetition was almost certainly not deliberate—“special” is a word that Trump uses so often that it is almost a mark of how deadened his rhetoric is. He nonetheless remains a man with a following in the tens of millions, including a smaller contingent who are apparently willing to violently assault their fellow-citizens on his behalf. He can still do a great deal of harm to our democracy, but, watching him on Wednesday, it was clear that he would need at least a few hours to figure out how. He has become accustomed to relying on the props of Presidential power—the big plane behind him, the marines saluting him. At his departure, the soundtrack included “Hail to the Chief,” as well as songs such as “Gloria” and “Y.M.C.A.” that have become improbable standards at his rallies.

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