Inauguration Day 2025. It got off to such a great start. For a couple of hours on Jan. 20, Americans were rewarded with images of what a peaceful transition of power should be. Renewing a tradition that Donald Trump himself broke four years ago, outgoing President Biden welcomed incoming President Trump to the White House, and they rode up to the Capitol together.

In the rotunda, former presidents and vice presidents, Republican and Democrat, together with justices of the Supreme Court, members of Congress, family and honored guests were assembled to watch the simple, but awesome, ceremony where, merely by the taking of an oath of office, power is transferred from one administration to the next.

Up to that point, the message to the world was loud and clear: Yes, we Americans have our political differences, but we all come together today in common cause. One party lost last November, but democracy survives. This started out as a feel-good moment of hope, patriotism and unity.

And then Donald Trump took the podium and turned what should have been a sacred inaugural ceremony into one more MAGA political rally. Monday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that, unlike

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