When a new president is inaugurated, the thermodynamics of power in Washington become for a moment physically observable, measurable in crowd estimates, seating charts, corporate-sponsorship banners and embossed invitations. Over the long weekend, everyone with a rooting interest in a presidency, from door-knocking grandmothers to the executives of ballistic-missile manufacturers, is there to claim a share of it, navigating the same maze of street closures and security barricades.
The optics, in a country with an increasingly untenable concentration of wealth, are never great: the loyal voters, delivered to the nation’s capital by chartered buses and knee-bruising economy-class flights, shivering on the National Mall in hopes of catching a glimpse of their new president on the Jumbotron, while the elites are whisked past security lines and ferried between mansions in Kalorama and Georgetown in convoys of dark-windowed Escalades. The contrast was starker than usual at Donald Trump’s second inauguration, where the communal rites of the swearing-in ceremony and the parade were taken inside — because of the weather, officially — and reconstituted as quasi-exclusive events, leaving most of his supporters quite literally out in the cold.
But the inauguration’s dance of public and private power is more complicated than that. For Trump, the world is made up of binaries of domination and submission, and every Trump supporter standing outside Capital One Arena could read the subtext of the black-tie receptions hosted by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, who banned Trump from Facebook for two years, or the commemorative soda bottles furnished by Coca-Cola, which once denounced the actions of the Jan. 6 rioters whom Trump was now freeing from prison with the stroke of a pen. These were gestures of appeasement, for which they, the voters, could take some credit. Even people who were unlikely to enjoy the spoils of power in Trump’s second presidency could take some pleasure, in this moment, in wielding it.
What did they actually want from this restoration? For three days, the photographer Philip Montgomery and I crisscrossed a city in the process of becoming Trump’s Washington once again, asking that question of the supporters who enabled this transfer of power and came to celebrate it.
Sheryl Dutter
Car-dealership cashier
Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
We are so divided. It’s scary. Scary for the kids that are growing up, like my grandkids. I don’t like the way this country’s turned — all this woke stuff. Stuff that the kids shouldn’t be exposed to. I think I was 18 before I knew that there was gay people, you know? I listened to Queen. I didn’t know he was gay.
Amish came out in Pennsylvania. They came out in droves. They came out in their horse and buggies. It was incredible. So that’s a united country again. We’re tired of being lied to.
Douglas W. Jones
Retired electrician
Smackover, Ark.
When I speak to people that basically hate Trump, well, I never hated Biden. I didn’t hate Obama. I just didn’t like their policies. So when somebody says they hate Trump — well, why do you hate him?
I went to a big prayer-and-praise convocation yesterday at the Greater New Hope Baptist Church, which is a Black Lives Matter church. A lot of people from all over the world, and we just prayed and sang praises to Lord Jesus, just to bring this country together to be what it needs to be. That was better than the rally because we had purpose.
Olusola Owoeye
Detention-service officer, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department
Dallas
I believe with Jesus at Trump’s side, America will be safe again, America will be greater again. He’s going to join us together. We’re going to support him with prayers, actions.
I came here legally. Illegal immigrants shouldn’t be allowed in the country. He can deport them and tell them to go through the immigration process.
Chris Roman
Trump-merchandise vendor
Sarasota, Fla.
I hope that we can truly and honestly understand what it means to, first, have our economy stabilized. I think that we should be protecting babies. I think that you guys understand what I’m talking about there. And, you know, just freedom of speech, protecting things like that. The left has been so gung ho about just taking away rights and trying to demolish what it means to be an American.
Robert Shinkle
Ohio Department of Development administrative staff
Sugarcreek Township, Ohio
We expect that Trump will usher in a new golden era for America. That’s why we’re dressed the way we are. This is the beginning of the Roaring Twenties 2.0. You’re going to see so much economic prosperity, the cost of energy going down, while American hegemony increases dramatically. It’s very hopeful right now — way more than his first term. There’s been a lot of lessons learned.
Carolyn Beauregard-Shinkle
Retired marketing executive
Sugarcreek Township, Ohio
It’ll be a different kind of presidency, these next four years. He has excellent people in place in the cabinet as well as throughout the White House staff. I think that he knows that he has limited time to get a lot done.
Stephen Chacko
Real estate developer
Dallas
My mom and dad came from South India. If my parents came here legally and followed the rules and did it right and became U.S. citizens, then they deserve that credibility. The people that come here illegally, that’s not right. It actually devalues those immigrants like my parents, all the work that they did.
Anthony DeCesaris, with his wife, Judy DeCesaris
Retired investor
Chester County, Pa.
We have four children, they’re all living with us. We have a 30-year-old living in the basement with his fiancée, trying to get to a wedding, trying to buy a house and trying to get by. So we’re hoping that there’s some relief for the average young person.
Maria Britto
Insurance agent
Miami
I think he has changed. His way of projecting himself, it was very rough before. He has become wiser because of what happened to him. He almost died. And he said it: God gave him a second chance, to be a uniter.
Judith Verano
Peruvian immigrant
Washington, D.C.
What we want is that they give us more hope that immigrants won’t get deported if they haven’t committed a crime. If we do things correctly and pay our taxes, don’t kick us out. I agree with what he thinks about the first priorities, that he wants to take away those that are committing crimes. If one comes to a country, they should contribute, not get arrested.
Chuck Lu
Small-business owner
Chicago
I put the story of Jan. 6 side by side with what the Communist Party did in the Tiananmen Square. I was back in China when Tiananmen Square happened. I was a student in 1989. For me, the two historic events are essentially the same thing. You had a bureaucratic government that crushed the people’s voice. I was at the Capitol that day. It was a setup. If they’re insurrectionists, they’re the most incompetent insurrectionists in human history.
Rollins Whitaker
College student at the University of Mississippi
Guntersville, Ala.
My generation’s, like, falling apart. It’s awful. I think the border policy’s really important. What college was it where the girl was running on the track, and someone who was here illegally literally murdered her? That could happen anywhere. I transferred out of the high school that I was going to graduate from because there were guys that were going into the girls’ bathroom. And they just say that they’re a girl, but they’re clearly a guy.
Crystal Whitaker with her son, J. T. Whitaker
Textile designer
Guntersville, Ala.
I want to go back where it once was. Conservative values — we’re from the South, so the Bible Belt. For my kids, I want them to grow up with the same values that I had growing up.
We live in rural Alabama and we had been bombarded with Haitians that have literally taken over our area. Our schools are overflowing. They don’t speak English. They don’t clean up after themselves. They just don’t understand how we live. It’s like a third world country. I have no problem with someone immigrating, just do it legally. I feel so bad saying some of this stuff, but you know, I feel like we’ve become just way too far liberal on some of our beliefs.
We are home-schooling him right now, because of what the schools have become.This one has always been like, obsessed with Donald Trump. I mean, every paper he writes, every project he does in school, everything is about Trump.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.
Philip Montgomery is a photographer whose work examines the fractured state of America. He previously photographed the people of Luzerne County, Pa., for the magazine in the days around the 2024 election.