Ever on the lookout for irony, The Scrapbook’s attention was drawn the other day to two stories—conven-iently situated next to one another—on the front page of the Washington Post Metro section. The first, entitled “D.C. readies for horde of inaugural protesters” (December 4), explained that hundreds of thousands of people are expected to arrive in Washington next month to protest Donald Trump’s inauguration, but capital officials are ready “with thousands of police officers and National Guard members from across the country.”
This was not a novel story, in The Scrapbook’s estimation, since we’ve read it before; but it seems only to occur when Republican presidents win elections and are sworn into office. That modern tradition began in January 1969, when Richard Nixon succeeded Lyndon Johnson and his inaugural parade route was lined in places with antiwar demonstrators, some of whom turned violent in the course of the day. The tradition was revived in 1981, when Ronald Reagan supplanted Jimmy Carter; in 1989, when George H. W. Bush succeeded Reagan; and again in 2001, when George W. Bush followed Bill Clinton. On that occasion The Scrapbook recalls, in particular, a large contingent of Yale undergraduates who held signs aloft “apologizing” for their fellow alumnus and jeering, at high volume, during his Inaugural Address.
It should be mentioned, at this juncture, that no comparable demonstrations (or violence and vandalism) seem to have taken place in 1977, when Carter replaced Gerald Ford; or in 1993, after Clinton defeated Bush I; or again in 2009, when Barack Obama succeeded Bush II. This might speak to an essential character difference between left and right in America or, perhaps, reflects the fact that the press tends to treat the arrival of a Republican administration as the political equivalent of a hostile takeover, and reports accordingly.
A case in point was the second Metro section story, which featured this headline: “In Pence’s new neighborhood, not exactly the welcome wagon.” As his temporary residence, Vice President-elect Mike Pence seems to have rented a house in an affluent neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., and the local homeowners aren’t happy about it. Apart from complaining about his presence to reporters and on their neighborhood Internet mailing list, they’ve taken to flying gay pride flags along their street—”a response to Pence’s opposition over the years to equal rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community”—and one of the more bumptious residents slipped an especially patronizing/hostile “greeting” under Pence’s front door.
Mike Pence is a busy man these days and not likely to notice such minor incivilities. But The Scrapbook is not so distracted. Once again, we have no recollection of pointed political messages flown from local flagpoles when the Joe Bidens rolled into town, or a general mobilization of cops and soldiers to do battle with anti-Obama demonstrators. On the contrary: In the nation’s capital, the modern changing of the guard from Republican to Democratic administrations has invariably been peaceful, respectful, and dignified; from Democratic to Republican, however, it’s been churlish, nasty, and sometimes violent.
Needless to say, not every Democrat is to blame for this state of affairs, but Democrats do tend to hold Republicans responsible for what they describe as a loss of civility in modern politics. That’s something to think about when those thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators arrive in Washington next month.
