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ACEP Now: Vol 36 – No 02 – February 2017Dr. Cirillo and his son Connor join the crowd at the inauguration.
As a self-professed political junkie, I will admit that attending a presidential inauguration has been on my bucket list for a long time. As I “approach” middle age at the age of 56 (my definition of middle age) and since inaugurations only happen every four years, I decided that this would be the year to head to Washington, D.C., to attend the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States. I will admit that, given the unconventional nature of the entire presidential campaign and the controversy that surrounds President Trump, I drove to D.C. with my son Connor and with a mixed emotional bag of excitement and trepidation. The weekend experience in D.C. was enlightening, but honestly, it was more disheartening. When I left D.C. and headed back home to Rhode Island, I kept asking myself, “Who is America?” While in D.C. and in the days since I got back home, I keep feeling that I am not part of the America that I saw at the inauguration or at the Women’s March on Washington the following day. Since I have been involved in politics and advocacy for a while, I was not naive enough to believe that everyone in D.C. was going to sing “Kumbaya” just because it was inauguration weekend. On the other hand, I did not expect to witness Americans disrespecting the office of the president, the United States as a nation, and mostly one other.
Inauguration Morning
We took the Metro and made it to Union Station by 8 a.m. Upon leaving Union Station, there were already protests happening, but given the presence of law enforcement everywhere, we felt very safe and walked up to the Capitol. We were fortunate and had been given seated tickets by U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI). I will give kudos to Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who served as chair of the Inauguration Committee, and the entire team of folks who did the planning and logistics for the inauguration. Despite the complexity of the event, this was well choreographed and orchestrated.
So if the day was so easy, then when I did get so disheartened? Well, it wasn’t the official ceremony part of the whole day but, honestly, the people there. Look, I had no illusions that this wasn’t going to be a pro-Republican and pro-Trump crowd. If you made the trip to the inauguration, you were probably on the “righter” side of the aisle in terms of political leaning; I get that. However, the people around us weren’t just happy about their guy winning. They actually seemed to revel more in taunting and jeering the outgoing president, the first lady, and, of course, Hillary Clinton, who could have taken a pass on the whole day and avoided the crowd. There was real vitriol and disdain for people who had served the nation, which went beyond disagreeing with a political point of view. I was really taken aback by this. Maybe I am naive, but an important part of politics for me is separating someone’s issues from that person’s value as a human being. In all my years in politics and advocacy, I have yet to find a politician or policymaker who I agreed with on every issue. That’s why you don’t fall on your sword on any one issue because tomorrow is another day, another issue, and another vote. That’s why you build relationships based on mutual respect and finding common ground rather than focus on what divides us. In all honesty, the crowd really took something away from the importance and significance of this event, which has happened only 58 times in the history of our nation.
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4 Responses to “Attending President Trump’s Inauguration Leaves Emergency Physician–Political Junkie Disheartened”
February 19, 2017
June McMillin, MDI agree, most of us are in the middle. I did participate in the Women’s March in the city that is closest to me and did not see the burning or the rant by Madonna. Our march was great. There were a lot of issues expressed with less vitriol and more positivity than the march in Washington. I haven’t marched in 40 years and I met some wonderful people who said the same thing. Some of the people who I met were Trump voters but they had concerns that they joined in expressing. All in all, it was a wonderful experience and reaffirming that the American people still have a voice which they are willing to use.
February 19, 2017
Robert Margulies, MD MPH FACPM FACEP FACFEKudos Dr Cirillo.
Rational, lucid and compelling.
Honest,relevan and civil debate are core values.
The “women’s march” was none of the above..
We all know who was left out and why.
One side screaming is not a debate.
We can advance the legitimate agenda of medicine when we are intellectually honest and willing to evaluate the other sides statistics. Both sides!
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February 23, 2017
David Zodda, MDIn response to Dr.Cirillo’s “Not My America” I have the following comment. While I applaud your efforts to offer a moderate spin on both the presidential inauguration and the women’s march in Washington D.C., I don’t fully agree with your premise that the ‘true majority’ of our country live somewhere within two standard deviations of the bell curve of social and economic issues. If that were true, we would not be in the political situation we are now. Our current administration represents the extreme far right of the bell curve for it promotes an agenda of religious intolerance, racial inequality, and isolationism. If we choose to align ourselves with this administration’s platform than we can no longer decry that we sit in the middle and represent the beliefs of the majority of Americans. To paraphrase the words of Howard Zinn, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.” Our forefathers taught us that democracy is not a spectator sport and we as Americans have a responsibility to speak out and engage when the rights of others are marginalized and threatened. See you at the next march!
February 28, 2017
NNWe are ‘one nation under God”–I just wish we would act like it. I became so disenchanted with partisan politics that I became an independent voter nearly 4 years ago. The significance of being an American seems to have been lost, now it is simply used as rhetoric to obtain a vote. I’ve always believed that differing opinions can be healthy and at times it can force a spirited dialogue. The political parties have forgotten that it is possible to meet in the middle, especially when it is in the best interest of the country. Instead, it has become about who is right and who is wrong.
Ultimately, it is the voice and vote of the people that will make effective change, as it always has. Just as we can place our leaders in office, so can we remove them if we deem them unfit to lead a country. The Constitution was based on that premise. We seem to have forgotten that also.