Why I didn’t watch the second inauguration of President Donald Trump | Opinion
I didn’t watch the second inauguration of Donald Trump. It was a quiet rebuke, one even more important given that it was happening on the day we were supposed to be celebrating the life of one of the country’s greatest Americans. Though I agreed that certifying Trump’s victory was a necessity — because the alternative was worse — turning my back on the festivities seemed a fitting personal admonishment of a man who would not be going back to the White House in a healthy democracy.
It’s not a day for which we should be proud. It should unnerve us that many millions of Americans have accepted the unacceptable, setting a precedent that is having an effect on states such as North Carolina. When you pervert democracy at the highest levels, it is easier to pervert it downwind.
I can’t say North Carolina Republican Jefferson Griffin took cues from Trump. I can say his anti-democratic efforts to steal an election he lost is Trumpian.
Griffin is a North Carolina Court of Appeals judge. He wants to become a state Supreme Court justice. He ran against incumbent justice Democrat Allison Riggs.
He lost, which became clear after a couple of recounts.
But like Trump, Griffin won’t let a little democracy come between him and even more power. He doesn’t care that voters rejected him. He has kept appealing, misusing a court system designed to uphold our principles rather than undermine them.
He wants 60,000 votes thrown out for supposed improper registration. He’s targeted another 5,500 cast by military personnel, their family and citizens overseas, as well as a few hundred others. His real targets are Democratic areas. He wants Democratic votes thrown out, enough to tip the scales in his favor.
His actions are so extreme, it’s scary he’s been sitting on the state’s Court of Appeals.
His case should have been laughed out of court. Instead, a few of his buddies have delayed certification. They are considering helping steal an election in a state already gerrymandered in a way that has left us under near-minority rule despite a voting population that is slightly more Democratic than Republican.
But in a world in which a man like Trump gets to once again kick up his feet in the Oval Office, Griffin’s behavior doesn’t seem so out of place. The point is to win, to pretend you have even when you haven’t, to keep pretending until you get what you want.
That’s what Trump did. He lied and lied and lied, convincing millions of Americans that he was the aggrieved party, and persuading a few thousand to storm the Capitol Building to help him overturn an election because they didn’t like the results. That should have ended his political career, and the political careers of all those involved. And yet, the pomp and circumstance went on Monday without a hitch, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the man who gave his life for this nation.
“All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper,” King said during his final public speech before an assassin’s bullet took his life on April 4, 1968.
America is known for truth, honesty and sacrifice.
America is known for democracy and the defense of it against all threats, foreign and domestic.
But America is known for a lot of things it has ignored during our two-and-half century long existence.
Trump’s return to the presidency proves a slight majority of Americans don’t much care what’s on paper even as they brag about the indispensability of the United States as a beacon.
King sacrificed himself for American ideals. Trump becoming president despite his role in a violent insurrection attempt chips away at the importance of that sacrifice.
Quietly turning my back as a reminder that we are supposed to be better than this was a small gesture. More Americans should have done the same in November. Though they didn’t, we should never forget that King’s sacrifice means little if we keep following men like Trump down the road to democratic ruin.
This story was originally published January 20, 2025 at 2:46 PM.