Disenfranchised?
Donald Trump’s opponents warned America repeatedly over the months prior to the election. In fact, they warned America CONTINUOUSLY. They warned that a Trump victory would disenfranchise large chunks of the populace: women, blacks, latinos, college students and Native Americans, among others. So, you might assume that, if this were true, enthusiasm among these groups for a Trump Presidency would be low. And, as a consequence, you’d further expect that participation in the Inaguration of these groups would be low as well.
Judging from what I saw at the Inaguration, however, this simply wasn’t the case.
First, there were many, many enthusiastic Latino Supporters. In fact, a group called The Latino Leaders of America were in attendance, and used the hotel I was staying at as a home base. Similarly, black participation was also strong. And college students? There were scores of them, and after talking to many of them, I can attest that the level of enthusiasm was high. The participation of Native Americans in the audience is harder to asses, but I do know that they participated in the Inaugural parade, because they had marching banners saying so. Lastly, the women of America were participating in force as well. I am aware that Trump’s percentage of support was not as high among women as it was among men, but I can attest that there were many, many women supporters.
There is only ONE group whose participation I can not confirm: Muslims. Of course, unless the men were attired in traditional robes, it would be hard to know whether or not Muslim men were in attendance. But, Muslim women, at least the traditionally attired ones, would, of course, be easy to spot. And, remarkably, I did not see ONE hijab on any woman any where in the crowd at any time during the whole day. Not one! So, it DOES appear that Muslims may have felt disenfranchised. Oh well, you cant’t please EVERYONE!
So, with ONE exception, the predicted mass disenfranchisement of America was not in evidence at the Inaguration. Patriotic Americans of ALL stripes were on board and were there to jump start the process of making America great! It was wonderful to see.