Starting gun for the race to the bottom
By SIMON LEWIS — simlewis@ucdavis.edu
On a flight to Washington, DC, I was turning over in my mind part of a prayer the Reverend Robert A. Fisher, Rector of St. John’s Church at Lafayette Square, planned to deliver at Donald Trump’s pre-inaugural prayer service on Jan. 20, 2025.
“Open our eyes to simple beauty all around us, and our hearts to the loveliness men hide from us because we do not try to understand them.”
The prayer was written by St. John’s former Rector Oliver J. Hart for FDR, the President who attended the first of what has now been 14 pre-inaugural prayer services at the church. Reverend Fisher told me, “it’s a prayer inviting us to see one another better, to honor the dignity and worth of every human being, and that’s a timeless call.”
For the Reverend’s first pre-inaugural prayer service, he returned the service to its older form, removing guest speakers and sermons. The Reverend told me, “It made a lot of sense to me to bring it back in, simplify, make it not a time about celebrity, but about prayer.”
At Trump’s first pre-inaugural service at the church in 2017, one guest pastor compared him to Nehemiah, a prophet chosen by God to build a wall. On June 1, 2020, Trump ordered peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed to make way for his photo-op in front of the church. In the time of the Once and Future President’s great rubdown by billionaires, Village People and Snoop Dogg, it lightened my chafing heart to know that for half an hour, God wouldn’t join in, too — everyone else seemed to have, though.
In a conversation with Daniel Lippman, a Politico reporter covering the White House, he told me, “With the first inauguration, there was so much resistance around his taking office… this time, all these CEOs that were anti-Trump before are flocking to Trump’s side to celebrate him.”
In the press, he said, “A number of media outlets are not as resistance-focused as they were eight years ago because the American people voted for Trump twice, and this time he won the popular vote. They want to appeal to his voters to get more viewers or readers, so you’re seeing media organizations act accordingly. There’s still going to be tough journalism and he’ll still attack the press, but you’re not going to have something like the Russia scandal that was a cloud over his first administration.”
It seemed Trump’s “Revolution of Common Sense” had stupefied all levels of America with his sweeping victory. On inauguration morning, a mile-long river of red caps stretched to the Capital One Arena. In there, on jumbotrons bigger than gods, the Great One had a laurel wreath placed on His head and was sicced on all His foes. The outdoor inauguration was cancelled due to cold, and now those with outdoor tickets either held out hope for a seat in the Arena or went to overpriced brunch buffets at bars all around the city.
Meanwhile, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Reichsführer-X Elon Musk and Google CEO Sundar Pichai got an up-close look at their prize horse at the indoor ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda. But they weren’t the only ones hustling that day. I met Terry K. Wilson, an artist selling prints of his painting depicting Donald Trump on an elephant.
He told me, “Even though I’m not all the way with [Trump], I still paint him because it’s history and he is our President… When he came into office right after Obama, I had an Obama piece right next to this one, so I was selling to both crowds, because I have to make a living at art… I do major events around the country. The next show I’m doing is in March in Selma, Alabama for voter’s rights, so I’m doing a painting on that right now.”
The clock struck noon, Donald Trump was President, and in front of all these women in furs from head-to-toe and their equally murderous husbands, I drank a Fireball shooter I found behind a porta-potty and shouted, “Trump Über Alles! Und Tausendjähriges Reich!” I staggered through the Killing Fields of Chinchilla, mad as an improperly-gored bull, reeling each time I heard another rickshaw playing “YMCA.” I saw Joe Rogan and shouted, “You’re a bald piglet suckling on Trump’s sow teat!”
I left the city unheard. In Las Vegas on a layover, I saw an ad which read “Rule The World” and just inches away, I could see the Trump International Hotel in the Strip skyline. I pointed and told a couple in “Make America Great Again” hats, “Go be with your God!” but they just smiled. Well, at least I got to see what a real winner looks like.
Written by: Simon Lewis — simlewis@ucdavis.edu
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by guest writers belong to the writers alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie
