After attending President Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Monday, our local congressman, Rep. Jared Huffman, posted the following writeup on his Facebook page (which he lists under the name of his cat, Truman, for algorithmic reasons):

Huffman

Day 1 of Trump 2.0 is off to a predictable start. I attended the inauguration even though I didn’t want to because I wanted to show Republicans that I’m standing my ground and here to do my job. I wanted all of you to know that too. And I just got back from the traditional lunch the new President and VP have with congressional leaders, which is one of my new responsibilities as Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee.

None of today’s events were surprising, but it was still surreal to be in such close proximity to all of those tech billionaires, rightwing gadflies and Trump family members. In the spirit of bipartisanship, I’ll say that Carrie Underwood seems genuinely nice, Ted Cruz and I chatted politely about all the Presidents born in 1946 (Bush Jr., Clinton and Trump), and Interior Nominee Doug [Burgum’s] son is a very thoughtful, pleasant and impressive young man who seems to genuinely care about solving the problem of social isolation. People were on their best behavior knowing this was the calm before the storm, which added to the surreal feeling. 

Trump’s speech was at once ominous, weird, and laughably dumb — ranging from dark authoritarian threats he is already acting on (e.g., invoking the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts to justify using our military to deport people), to things we all know he will never do (taking back the Panama Canal, landing a man on Mars during his presidency), to things that are just bonkers (renaming the Gulf of Mexico). That’s going to be the mix folks — we have to focus on the real and dangerous parts and not chase squirrels.

And get ready for extreme gaslighting to justify unthinkable abuses of executive power. With our border silent, Trump declared an “invasion” to justify mobilizing the military for his mass deportation plan. With our oil and gas production/exports at all-time highs, he declared an energy emergency to justify his extreme “drill baby drill” plans. This is the Reichstag Fire playbook: create a crisis and use it to justify waiving laws, claiming emergency powers, and eventually ending democracy. We’re going to see a lot more of this, and we should know where it leads.

I was also struck by the overt Christian nationalism at every turn — continuous invocations of our country’s Christian roots and heritage, celebrating the totally fake history of George Washington kneeling in prayer at Valley Forge, claiming that God spared Trump from assassination so that he could carry out his MAGA agenda, and that God wanted Trump to win the election, etc. The clear message: God now wants all of US to fall in line and do Trump’s bidding. Between the inauguration and the lunch ceremony, there were at least 8 official prayers from a mix of MAGA evangelicals and rightwing Catholics, and one MAGA rabbi (that is how Christian nationalists’ camouflage their antisemitism, allowing a token Jewish voice in order to claim they are for “Judeo-Christian” values — but notice they never say Abrahamic, since that would bring in Muslims). All of this is standard fare these days, but it still makes me want to burn some sage.

I will need more time to parse and process all of the Executive Orders from our Day-1 Dictator, but all of these orders so far are straight out of Project 2025, just as we warned. Later this week, I’ll lead Democrats into the first hearing of the Natural Resources Committee where we’ll lead the fight against Trump’s “drill baby drill” agenda. And, because we have jurisdiction over the US Geological Survey, we’ll be on point for Trump’s plan to rename the Gulf of Mexico. Things are going to be busy.

I’m ready for all of this. Brace for turbulence. My advice is try to stay focused on things that pose direct threats to our values and our communities. Stay off Twitter, tune out the distractions if you can, and feel free to post cat pictures here anytime. 

Onward.