Selin Hekimoglu / Staff reporter
On January 20, 2005, several counter-inaugural protests took place in Washington, D.C, and a couple other cities. After George Bush won his second year of presidency, thousands of protestors arrived in Washington to protest his second inauguration. The protests were led by environmentalists, feminists, and those who held strong anti war beliefs. At Bush’s first inauguration, an estimate of 20000 people attended in opposition. As time went by, his policies began to anger more people and around 25000 people had attended for his second inauguration.
Marches, die ins, concerts, rallies, are a few examples of where you could see these protests take place. They were usually kept peaceful and resulted in lesser amounts of arrests. Regardless, law enforcements were there to provide security, so they could prevent acts of violence.
Majority of the protestors were angered by Bush for getting the U.S. involved in the disastrous Iraq war. A man at the march down the 16th street can be seen holding a sign that says “1364, how many more George?” referring to the number of American troops who had died in Iraq.
12 years later, January 20, 2017, Donald Trump, the former president of the United States is inaugurated. Once Trump was announced as the president, many violent protests began. Similarly to before, number of the protestors were feminists, environmentalists, and liberals. The result of the political rallies were not like the previous ones against Bush. Incidents of violence broke out, many were charged with rioting, and things were being destroyed. For example, a limo was vandalized and set to fire by rioters.
16 years later, Joe Biden, the current president of the United States had his inauguration on January 20, 2021. To everyone’s relief, the nation kept quiet this time. A small number of pro-trump protestors stood at capitol hill buildings, but all protests were kept peaceful. Biden reminded everyone that, “Politics don’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path.” It is clear he was truthful when he said this, as his inauguration day did not result in mass riots unlike other times.
George W. Bush:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_20,_2005_counter-inaugural_protest
- https://www.jofreeman.com/photos/jan20.html
Donald Trump:
- https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-38700648
- https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/inauguration-2017/they-don-t-have-right-d-c-limo-driver-recalls-n710111
Joe Biden:
- https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-01-20/no-major-protests-on-joe-bidens-inauguration-day
- https://news.yahoo.com/biden-urges-unity-inaugural-speech-173500496.html
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