To Attend or Not to Attend?

Hillary Clinton is attending Donald Trump’s inauguration
tomorrow. John Lewis is not. She is a former first lady who will be
accompanying her husband, as well as a former secretary of state; he is a civil
rights icon and revered member of Congress. Her decision to attend has garnered
sharp criticism from the left; his decision not to attend triggered a petulant
and insulting tweet from the president-elect himself.

Who is right? Both are. That is not a mushy middle answer,
but a principled one. We must respect the office of the presidency and fight
the personality and politics of the president at the same time. All former
living presidents who are able are attending the inauguration, with their
spouses, as they always do. They are there to uphold the peaceful transition of
power in a democratic republic, to witness the new president vowing, before the
assembled Congress, the Supreme Court, the nation’s highest military officers, cabinet
members old and new, and millions of voters, to uphold the Constitution.
President Obama himself, in his farewell speech, shushed boos when he referenced
the inauguration, telling his supporters that the “peaceful transfer from one
freely elected president to the next” is a “hallmark of our democracy.”

It has never been more important to support America’s
institutions than it is now. During the Watergate era, it was those
institutions – the press, senators and members of Congress from both parties,
the Attorney General, and the courts – that forced a president charged with
criminal wrongdoing out of office. The institutions of our democracy triumphed
over partisan politics. Today, many of those institutions are far weaker than
they were in 1974. No one journalist or newscaster can report “the news” and be
believed by the majority of voters on both side of the aisle, as Walter Cronkite
once could. Similarly, partisanship in Congress and public distrust of Congress
is far greater; the party discipline that principled leaders might once have
exercised is much lower. The judiciary is far more politicized today, at least
in the public’s eyes. And yet it is those institutions that are our bulwark
against unethical, illegal, or even criminal activity by members of the administration.
We must revere something beyond political power.

From a more pragmatic point of view, President Trump will be
inaugurated. He will appoint a government. That government will begin to make
decisions; important decisions that will affect the lives of millions.
Isolating members of the Trump administration who are carrying out government
business is self-defeating. Above all, it feeds Trump’s narrative that liberal
elites are contemptuous of ordinary Americans, widening a division that is
already dangerous. Again, to quote President Obama, “[W]e all have to try
harder. We all have to start with the premise that each of our fellow citizens
loves this country just as much as we do; that they value hard work and family
just like we do.” It is no time to build higher walls and dig wider moats.

Yet how can Americans who were and continue to be outraged
at Trump’s mockery of handicapped individuals, his dismissal and disparagement
of racial and religious groups, his degradation of women, the vulgarity and
flippancy with which he treats vitally important issues of national and
international politics continue to make themselves heard? They can march as
millions of women and men will on Saturday. They can continue to speak out
about these issues to Trump supporters, even as many of us urge Republican
friends whom we respect to take jobs with the administration, to assure that
talented, competent, and principled people fill vitally important jobs. And
they can organize groups across party lines to speak out against hate, reaching
out to those Trump voters who say they reject Trump’s tactics and rhetoric.

What is happening in our national life is not normal. We cannot allow it to become
business as usual. It is possible to hear the message of desperation, rage, and
hopelessness being sent by many Trump voters without endorsing the “smash
everything” solution they chose. Americans everywhere, regardless of how we vote,
must continue to recognize transcendent values: our common humanity and
equality, the rule of law, freedom of thought and expression, and the minimum
of mutual respect necessary for a diverse people to live together and govern
themselves in a free society.

It is thus fine and praiseworthy for individual members of congress
to continue to calling the president-elect to account—rejecting the idea that
the excesses of the campaign are behind us. As Hillary Clinton watches Donald
Trump take the oath of office, she should not forget that he mocked her as
Crooked Hillary and disdained her as a “nasty woman.” Nor should she forget
that he may have conspired with the Russians to bring her down, even as he promised
to lock her up if he were elected. We should all now judge the president by his
actions, but we cannot forget his words.

Finally, respect for the office of the presidency also means
demanding that the president maintain a degree of gravitas and civility that
citizens and foreign nations alike can hold upas a model to their children. President
Bill Clinton learned this lesson early on in his tenure when he answered a
question about his choice of underwear and allowed reporters to accompany him
on his morning jog. What Trump has already done—and what he continues to do—is
far worse: Childish insults, wild claims, and blatant lies degrade us all.

Those
who choose to attend the inauguration do so to try to help restore that
gravitas, to remind the American people and the world that the presidency is
greater than any one president. They are seeking to strengthen the system
itself, the pillars of our democracy. Those who choose to stay away are
insisting that the mantle of the presidency is not a cloak of immunity for
words and deeds that incite both fear and hatred. They are refusing to allow
the kind of politics that Trump practiced to become president to become the new
normal. Both positions are justifiable and necessary.