Reflections on Inauguration Day

August 20, 2009 | Observer Staff | Comments 0

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Cold, Tired and Squeezed

By Gabriel Serrato

In early January, I was considering my options for getting out of town. I could rent out my apartment, make some quick cash and take a nice vacation leaving DC to the befuddled masses for the weekend. The swearing-in of President Barack Obama was going to be accompanied by droves of crowds who would invade my adopted city like swarms of locusts. Millions of beaming Americans ready to Twitter and Facebook their journey into history were going to descend on the Capitol – and they all planned on getting on my nerves.

They were going to overcrowd every place I needed to go, stand on the left side of the escalator, and bring abundant supplies of tacky clothes, souvenirs and anything else they could print, embroider or Bedazzle Obama’s name and face on.

Partly through my own historical curiosity, but mostly out of laziness, I ended up staying in D.C for the inauguration. And while the massive mob of my excited countrymen satisfied all of my expectations, I realized that there was nowhere else in the world I would rather be than in freezing Washington D.C. for that weekend.

For me, the experience of inauguration weekend did not hinge on the moment Obama recited the final words of his oath of office. While I recognized the importance of our nation’s first black president and the introduction of our new quasi-royal family, it was the masses themselves that I found most inspiring. Millions of sleep deprived Americans squeezed together shoulder to shoulder for endless hours while exposed to the freezing cold should have been a recipe for disaster. Instead it produced a national camaraderie that I neither expected nor had experienced in my lifetime.

On Inauguration morning, I stood for nine hours directly in front of the MSNBC booth at 7th and Jefferson, nearly a mile away from the action. I was surrounded by freezing tourist and locals from all walks of life, excited to usher in a new era of American history. As I tried to protect my six inches of personal space, I made small talk with those around me. Many were quite clear that Obama had erased their cynicism in American politics and had renewed their faith in the American spirit. Others literally breathed sighs of relief as they reflected on the end of eight years that were concluding with two-protracted wars and economic uncertainty.

When the lines of Hollywood celebrities began to file on to the inauguration stage everyone around me seemed to forget that their toes were frozen and their legs were weary from standing.

After a historically long campaign season, a bitter race between candidates trying to out-campaign promise each other, and two terms of what many around me considered historic ineptitude, it was finally show time.

It is difficult to explain the feeling of two million people cheering, jeering and singing together in unison, but as we got closer to 11:55am the symphony of Americans on The Mall seemed to embody the spirit of national unity that Obama had promised.

Millions of Americans covering every piece of real estate from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial focused all of their emotions on one man and turned an amorphous campaign slogan of hope and change into discernable reality.

Four years ago I attended the second inauguration of George W. Bush, thinking I wouldn’t be in DC long enough to see another inauguration. Absent were the celebrities, bitter cold, and about a million and a half people. I literally could not give away two extra tickets, which today sit in my desk drawer as one my first Washington DC keepsakes.

There was no hope for change, only the comfort of the status quo. There were no hordes of crowds reflecting the diversity of the nation. There was no air of national mandate to unify the country. Bush had squeezed out a second hotly contested race for the presidency and his inauguration felt more like a formality to retain power than a celebration of American democracy.

Comparing Bush’s second inauguration to Obama’s first is a bit unfair, but what it reveals is the rejuvenated spirit of the American people. Millions of people together on The Mall and millions more watching across the country reevaluated their skepticism in government and were excited in the role they would play in reinvigorating the American spirit.

Obama’s inauguration weekend was physically demanding. Between concerts, balls and the swearing-in itself, I calculated that I stood among freezing strangers for more than thirty hours. And while I regret not bundling up enough and certainly miss the $2,000 I could have gotten for my apartment, there is no place in the world I would have rather been than among the dense freezing crowd of hopeful Americans on that National Mall.

Gabriel Serrato is a first year Strategic Studies candidate.

Filed Under: February 2009