While I did not personally attend Donald Trump's Inauguration or the Women's March On Washington the next day, I am always a big fan of first-person reports of such events. So today I'm happy to introduce a guest author who did make the effort to protest Donald Trump's big day in person.

I was introduced to Teresa Johnson as a friend-of-a-friend, and told her I'd be happy to read her personal narrative of the experience of protesting Donald Trump's Inauguration. Eight years ago, I attended the swearing-in of Barack Obama, so I was interested to hear the differences between that happy day and what just took place in Washington, D.C. I was impressed with what she had written, and so decided to share it with my readers as well. I also asked her to write a paragraph to introduce herself to you, and here's what she wrote:

Teresa Johnson
(All photographs ©Teresa Johnson, 2017)

Teresa Johnson is an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland College Park as a journalism major with a concentration in women's studies. As a freelancer with her writing and communication skills, she became Editor-in-Chief of Psych2Go Magazine, a psychology-based publication for Millennials that she founded through social media in 2015. Teresa avidly explores networking and job opportunities in the communication and journalism fields.

So without further ado, here are Teresa Johnson's personal thoughts on what it was like to protest the Inauguration of Donald Trump as U.S. president.

-- Chris Weigant

Protesting The Inauguration: An Honest Reflection

Momentarily, the Internet is inherently screaming. A whirlwind of events has occurred within the last couple of weeks throughout the U.S. such as the Inauguration of Donald Trump, the Women's March, as well as other protests towards other governmental actions that are currently being put in place. Before I reflect on the Inauguration protest, in which I witnessed both violent and nonviolent action, I want to make it clear that I am a white woman and I am aware of my privilege. With that being said, I also think that as a young adult, and as a woman, it is my duty to participate in the loud, unapologetic statement that millions of Americans are making. Throughout this rollercoaster of events, it made me realize that it's important to be vocal and to stop stooping my views to those that don't necessarily agree with me just to create a rose-colored-glasses kind of unity. There is still so much wrong with the way society views marginalized groups and contentious issues, and along with many, I have chosen not to pretend that it's not a problem. Always fight for what you believe in. So many people contemplate the idea that "protesting does nothing," but I'm here to rebut that and say: "Yes, protesting does do something."

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If it weren't such a serious subject, the irony would be downright hilarious. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer tried his hand at being politically correct. Why he did so is a mystery known only to the inner workings of the Trump administration, but the eventual outcome was nothing short of utter failure -- undermined, in the end, by his own boss.

The heart of all the confusion was what to call Donald Trump's Muslim ban. Trump, back during the presidential campaign, used to brag (inaccurately) that he was the first Republican to start talking about building a wall on our southern border and border security in general. This was not correct -- plenty of Republicans had spoken of both previously. But Trump did introduce many brand-new ideas during the course of the campaign, one of which was the Muslim ban. Nobody was talking about banning entry to Muslims in this country before Trump.

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It didn't take Donald Trump long before he had a chance to use his famous catchphrase as president. He has now fired not only the Acting Attorney General, but also a growing number of high-ranking federal employees in a number of departments and agencies (the State Department, and today, the immigration enforcement agency). Whether this is a good thing for the country or even a good thing for Trump politically is debatable, of course. But no matter where you come down on the Trump firings so far, they are not in any way illegal or unconstitutional. The president has wide discretion to fire people, although only down to a certain red line.

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While Donald Trump certainly had a momentous first full week on the job, none of it really should have been all that surprising. Plenty of people were downright outraged by his first actions as president, but few should have been as shocked as they seemed to be. It's finally sinking in, to put this slightly differently, that there simply will never be a "pivot" to some different, more presidential Trump. The Trump you see is the Trump you get.

The pivot theory was espoused by many (trapped inside their Beltway-centric thinking) at various points over the past two years. Trump would surely pivot when he began leading in the polls. Or winning primaries. Or during debates. Or -- surely -- after he won the nomination and had to run a general election campaign. Since the election, this theory should have been buried beyond all resuscitation, but even then there were those who kept pathetically insisting that "as president-elect, he'll surely now pivot" or even "after he is sworn in, he'll have to act more presidential." Last week proved this is never going to happen, and those who are still hoping for it should now be looked at with loving pity, as you would an adult who insisted the Easter Bunny was real. Delusional, but largely harmless to others, in other words.

What worries me most about Trump (to get back on subject), though, is not what he's been doing last week, nor what he's got planned for this week. Because almost without exception Trump has only been doing what he said he'd do while campaigning. While I certainly don't condone much (if anything) that Trump is now doing, I've been expecting it ever since he got elected. His big signing ceremonies have been teed up for him for his first few weeks in office, so he can take care of the "low-hanging fruit" of his campaign promises. His executive orders and memoranda may not all ever take place (for instance: he can sign a piece of paper saying we're going to immediately start building a wall, but until Congress provides money it won't happen), but he has already scored big political points with his base just by signing affirmations of what he promised them he would do as president. If it doesn't come to pass at a later date, he can just conveniently blame Congress, the courts, the media, or "the swamp" of Washington.

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We're going to start today with a story that sounds like an urban myth, but actually happened. The state government of Indiana, 120 years ago, was almost taken in by a crank mathematician. He got them to introduce a bill he had written that would have changed state law to state that the value of pi was what he said it was. The language of the bill is inexact at best -- it might better be described as "completely incoherent" -- and actually suggests multiple ways of calculating pi, none of which are correct. The easiest to understand was to calculate it as a ratio of 5/4 to 4, which would give 3.2. The other methods are pretty indecipherable, to be polite.

The measure passed the Indiana House, by a unanimous vote of 67 to nothing. It headed over to the state Senate, where (luckily) a sane professor of mathematics happened to be wandering by at the crucial moment and explained the idiocy of legislating a natural value. When one of the legislators offered to introduce him to the crank mathematician who had written the bill, Professor Waldo reportedly "declined the courtesy with thanks, remarking that he was acquainted with as many crazy people as he cared to know."

The moral of this rather amusing bit of American history is you can't legislate facts out of existence (pi would have remained 3.14159265... even if the bill had passed, in other words). Also, crazy people can't be stopped from trying to legislate their own reality, at times. This story isn't a direct parallel (yet), but we thought it would be as good a way as any to lead off the coverage of President Donald Trump's first week in office.

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President Donald Trump's administration may have just fired the first shot in what could become a worldwide trade war. In response to criticisms about his announcing that the border wall with Mexico will be paid for by American taxpayers (and not, as promised, Mexico), Trump has been trying to come up with an answer for how we will be "reimbursed" by Mexico. Today, apparently, he has decided on the preferred method. The White House just announced a 20 percent tax on all imports from Mexico.

This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but then that's never stopped Trump before. After all, a tariff of 20 percent on Mexican imports will be paid for not by "Mexico," but rather by American consumers. Cars, auto parts, food -- there's a long list of products that will become pricier for Americans to buy. The extra dollars out of American consumers' pockets (which will be necessary to buy these products) will be going to pay for that wall, plain and simple. Mexico the country -- or even Mexican companies -- will not be paying for it at all.

Will Trump's supporters even notice? That's a wide-open question. Will they buy the propaganda that "Trump's sticking it to Mexico!" or will they realize that everything now costs a couple bucks more down at Wal-Mart?

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That headline is an obvious attempt at a play on words, but while "taking the Fifth" (refusing to testify on the grounds that it would tend to incriminate you, a right guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution) happens on a daily basis in America, "taking the Twenty-Fifth" has never happened -- at least not in the way some are now contemplating. I first briefly wrote about this issue two weeks ago, but since then more and more people -- from both the right and the left -- have been noticing this constitutional oddity. But few are taking the time to read the entire section, instead quoting the start of it and ignoring the rest of it, which deals with the actual procedure itself. If you seriously are considering removing the president in a constitutional coup, however, it's worth taking a strong look at the Twenty-Fifth, in full.

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I should begin today by explaining that that headline comes from a Talking Heads song ("Making Flippy Floppy"), which was written during the years when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. It's kind of a nonsensical song and it's just one throwaway line; it wasn't trying to make some deeper point. Back then, liberals were constantly amused by pronouncements from the Gipper (such as: "trees cause more pollution than automobiles," to give just one hilarious example), so it was a common sentiment among his political opponents.

After watching the first few days of the Donald Trump administration, however, it seemed the most appropriate headline to go with. Because he hasn't exactly had a great start. Or to put it another way: there will be no "pivot" to a more-presidential Trump. He is who he is, and that's who he's going to be as president. And a big part of who he is is his worldview, which is often (as one of his spokespersons admitted this weekend), full of "alternative facts." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer helpfully pointed out, in response: "There are no alternative facts. The alternative to fact is fiction."

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My apologies for the lack of column yesterday (Monday). Our power went out at 5:30 A.M. Sunday morning, when a power pole with four transformers on it blew over in a storm, about 20 or 30 houses down our street. The power stayed off for the next 46 hours. It came back on a little after 4:00 this morning, and then we had to deal with refrigerator salvage and other fun stuff in the wee hours. As this wasn't enough fun for one weekend, in the middle of all this we had car problems (fuel pump died), and had to arrange for a tow to the shop. So, as I said, it's been a busy couple of days! I'm getting caught up on what's been going on, and will be writing a new column later today, but again, my apologies for the silence yesterday -- it was due to circumstances beyond my control. The silver lining? The California drought is definitely over, with all of these storms marching through.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Obama's Final Honeymoon Ends Well

America now has a new president, meaning (among other things) it is time to take one final look back at the presidency of Barack Obama. The chart is now complete on the public's opinion of how President Obama performed his duties, and his final "honeymoon" period not only continued during January, it actually improved considerably.

Without further ado, let's take a look at the final Obama monthly average poll ratings.

[Click on graph to see larger-scale version.]

January, 2017

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