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Jan 23, 2025

Post-Inaugural Special! Pomp And Consequences

A fourth column this week—at no extra cost!

By Ed Goldman

I felt I was in good company when Michelle Obama and Nancy Pelosi refused to attend the second Trump inauguration. So did I. The fact that I wasn’t invited isn’t the point here. For example, the inclement weather which forced the coronation to move indoors wasn’t invited, either. But it showed up, nevertheless. 

Perhaps you’re thinking, Why on earth would a dyed-in-the-cashmere Democrat such as I ever be invited to the coronation of a dyed-in-the-marmalade Republican such as our once-and-seemingly-unending President Trump? That would be a logical deduction. I mean, it would be ridiculous and a waste of expensive, embossed vellum.  

Edgy Cartoon

Something feathered this way comes

I think I only wanted to be invited so I could send my regrets on the enclosed RSVP card:

  1. Will you attend? No, sorry. (a) The date and time conflict with my semi-annual exfoliation appointment. (b) I’m also thinking of re-staging my Bar Mitzvah, this time eschewing Hebrew and reciting my declaration of manhood in Ebonics or Esperanto. Or both. (c) My quilting group meets that evening.  
  2. If you attend, do you have a “plus-one” you’d like to bring? Wait. Nobody told me there’d be a math requirement.
  1. How would you like to be addressed by the inauguration staff? “Sire.”
  2. Would you care to make a donation to the inauguration fund?Yes. I will be bringing some canned goods and like-new cargo pants.
  3. Would you like to offer a few words of encouragement to the new administration?Yes. Be sure to floss daily. As Soupy Sales once said, “Be true to your teeth and they won’t be false to you.” 
  4. In the likely event you don’t attend the inaugural but will watch it on TV, do you have any questions or suggestions for the nextinauguration should our beloved POTUS change the Constitution and run a third time? Just a question. Will first lady Melania Trump’s hat mean to suggest she’s a Venetian gondolier or a Pamplona matador?

On a similar note: While I don’t especially enjoy having my photo taken, it surprised me to learn this could be something I actually have in common with President-in-Perpetuity Donald J. Trump. 

How else to explain why he’d pose for his official inaugural portrait as a slightly seared Count Dracula? The lighting and Trump’s overall patina also suggest this is one vampire who almost didn’t make it back to his coffin as the sun began to rise.

It seems odd that someone like our POTUS, who’s never met a photo op he didn’t like, would go for the look of a well-fed cadaver. I realize that’s an oxymoron but so am I sometimes, when it’s broken into two words. 

Then again, he and his wife Melania often used to affect what they imagined were menacing visages in their pix, as though auditioning to play the evil twins of Lily and Herman Munster.

I can understand Melania going along with this since she used to be a fashion model, and photographers often have them suck in their cheeks and make angry faces to imply that being beautiful is less a bonus than an onus. And I suppose her husband’s meanie pose is to put world leaders, journalists, impoverished immigrants and small service animals on alert that, like Vito Corleone, the Don(ald) has recovered from his assassination attempt and will now be an adviser to his son, Elon.

—Now that I retrace my steps, I may have accidentally tossed out the invitation to the inaugural thinking it was a postcard advertising a cryogenics company, retirement seminar-with-buffet or time-share presentation. This is very disappointing. I really like those buffets.

Ed Goldman's column appears almost every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. A former daily columnist for the Sacramento Business Journal, as well as monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine and Comstock’s Business Magazine, he’s the author of five books, two plays and one musical (so far).