The inaugural balls cannot help but disappoint. What initially sounds so grand—three fancy-dress balls to honor the new head of state!—soon feels gauche and shabby once you learn that the main galas will be held not at some fancy mansion, but at D.C.’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center, which just last week played host to the Washington Wedding Experience; that the musical headliners are Tony Orlando sans Dawn, a few of the Rockettes, and Sam from Sam and Dave (Dave is dead); that the balls start at 7 p.m., presumably to accommodate all of the early-risers who paid $50 per ticket to attend; and that the honorees are a friendless, germophobic race-baiter who blustered his way into the presidency and his cigarette-resembling, Garfield-loving deputy. Versailles this ain’t.
Nevertheless, despite the presumed lack of fun to be had within, people go to the balls because going to a ball is what you do when you’re old and a Republican donor and own a tuxedo or ball gown. I had tickets to none of this year’s three official balls. But I went down there anyway to see what I could see and to see if I could bluff my way inside.
Not only was there no bluffing to be done, there was functionally no getting inside, either. To enter the first of the two balls at the convention center—“Liberty”—meant navigating a massive single-file line that started midway down Massachusetts Avenue at 10th Street NW, wound its way around a corner and up K Street almost all the way back to 10th Street, and then snaked its way across New York Avenue NW to the entrance gates, where security personnel were very slowly passing people through. You will not be surprised to learn that the largely overcoatless attendees were very mad about this delay.
“I guess if you wear a funny coat you can just skip right through the line!” fumed one man as he watched a bunch of men in funny coats resembling those worn by 18th-century soldiers—these men may have been with the Rockettes—attempt a shortcut, to no avail. “Excuse me, we bought priority access. Is there any way we can avoid … this?” one attendee asked me, after (presumably) seeing my burgundy blazer and mistaking me for an usher. “Oh! You’re press!” she said, soon recognizing her error. I left her and her escort to wait in the cold.
I eventually found my way to the security checkpoint, where a pedicab driver named Andy was discharging two passengers. He had been on the job since 4 a.m. Friday morning and planned to keep going until his body gave out. “I’m charging people how I was taught to charge them at Trump University,” he told me. “No-condom sex. Screw your passenger while you smile.” He wasn’t really a Trump U alumnus; it was just his way of criticizing his passengers and President Trump. “My price is concealed until they get the shock of their life at the end. But I only do this to the super-wealthy,” he said. “I let Trump screw the poor. He does a good job of it.”
Justin Peters
I made my way over to 9th Street NW, where the lines to get into the “Freedom” ball in the convention center were just as long as the Liberty lines. “This is a nightmare,” sighed a woman in a green dress as she attempted to find the end of what looked to be at least an hour-long line. She wasn’t the only one confused. Two young guys on Massachusetts Avenue and 6th Street NW were trying and failing at the same task when I caught up with them. “Be honest,” I asked. “How much fun do you expect to have tonight?”
“A lot,” one of them said. “Free drinks.”
“Assuming we can find the end of the line,” said the other.
“Funded by the American taxpayer.”
A sport-utility vehicle filled with protesters rolled by the line. “Fuck all of you Trump supporters!” a young woman yelled from the right passenger window. “This country’s going down and you’re going down with it!” A well-coiffed woman in a white shawl stepped out of line to offer a timely rejoinder: “Make America great! Again!” She was at least 40 minutes away from getting inside to hear Sam and a few of the Rockettes. I wished her well.
Over I went to the National Building Museum near D.C.’s Chinatown to try and gain access to the third official ball, dubbed the “Salute to Our Armed Services Ball.” When I got there, there was no line leading into the security checkpoint, mostly because there was no evident security checkpoint; the entire square block had been fenced off, guarded by a bunch of poorly informed and apologetic cops. The official inauguration website had led me to believe that the press could access this ball, but after circling the block twice, I realized it would be impossible to access this ball without either wings or a jet pack. “You ever walk so far in one day that you develop crippling shin splints at the end of it?” I asked a cop who was leaning up against a post. “Why do you think I’m leaning up against this post?” she said.
So what did I learn about Donald Trump’s inaugural balls after two hours’ worth of circling around outside of them? As I suspect will soon become a theme of Trump’s presidency, they overpromised and underdelivered. And they didn’t even really overpromise! Any ball that starts at 7 p.m. and features Tony Orlando cannot be said to have overpromised anything. I cannot confirm that the balls themselves were lame, but the lines were certainly long, and the people standing in them were cold and angry, though that also might just be their resting state.
Trump’s motorcade left the convention center at approximately 10:27 p.m. As I walked back home, I caught up with a Pavarotti-looking guy who had just left a ball and was heading down Massachusetts Avenue in the direction of Union Station. “Was it fun?” I asked. “It was a blast,” he said, without affect.
Clearly, the first night of the Trump administration ended with many of his biggest supporters feeling disappointed. They have four long years to get used to that feeling.
