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Revolution, ritual and pomp: Donald Trump's inauguration is pure political theatre

Michael Idato
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With motorcades, pomp and pageantry, and uniformed marines festooned in gold and shiny buttons and bayonets, the purpose of America's presidential inauguration is simple: it is pure political theatre.

And while businessman-turned-president Donald Trump may still be finding his size 12 feet in the political arena, he took to the stage today a man in the space he finds most comfortable, playing the star of the show.

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Donald Trump sworn in as US President

Donald Trump takes the oath of office to become the 45th President of the United States.

In terms of staging, you could not have set the scene more perfectly: the weather in Washington DC was damp and grey, and in California and New York, the two states arguably watching proceedings with the greatest measure of shock, it was appropriately pouring with rain.

Much like it was for many of the 44 men who came before him, Trump's swearing in as the 45th president of the United States came with its ritualistic touches: golden eagle-topped staves and a hand laid gently, and meaningfully, on the Bible.

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Looking on were four former US presidents – Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama; the fifth surviving former president George H. W. Bush did not attend due to poor health – and a rogue's gallery of other dignitaries.

And with an almost Shakespearean flourish, Trump's fiercest critics including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were also on the sidelines, having hoped politically to bury him, but now (unwillingly) coming to praise him.

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Even in pragmatic America, the pre-show touches were designed to emphasise the mysticism of the transfer of power: a letter left by Obama for Trump, the contents of which are not be discussed, the private conversations between Obama and Trump, and Michelle Obama and Melania Trump, travelling in pairs in the motorcade.

And on the stage a firm embrace between the former and incoming president, a far cry from the political battlefield of "birthernism" that the latter tried to unleash on the former, hoping to de-legitimise him. Ironically, today, Trump faces his own struggle with legitimacy. As political theatre, those twists and turns are without peer.

On display, with capped teeth, perfect hair and designer clothes, the Trumps were straight from central casting, taking their place in the VIP bleachers with the abstract focus and gentle wave of a textbook Royal Family.

The centrepiece of the sideshow: the not-always-visible Melania Trump, borrowing from playbook of former first lady Jackie Kennedy with a high-necked blue dress and gloves.

Each character was disgorged from the labyrinthine corridors of the Capitol onto "the platform", with uniformed escort and to scripted applause.

It was only Trump himself who seemed, for a few moments, to be alone on the staircase leading to the platform. And in a way that only Trump could, his eyes quickly found the camera and he mouthed a silent "hello" in its direction.

Even on the eve of a hoped-for political transformation, Trump the TV star was still in the room.

In some respects, this is Trump in his native environment: an image conscious poseur who would rather keep his tax records secret than let them confirm what many suspect, that the multi-billionaire myth is just that.

In one formal family photograph, Trump's son Barron has a stretch limousine Matchbox car in front of him; the signals are intended to be subtle but they are more often clumsy and obvious.

And the inauguration came with affecting moments, and inspirational speeches, cutaways of house speaker Paul Ryan's smirk, and touching glimpses of the seemingly downcast demeanour of Trump's youngest son, Barron, who at times seemed to be a little boy lost.

Then there was the thorny question of who might perform, with the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States quickly becoming the gig that no A-list artist would accept.

In the end, only the Mormons came – bless 'em – sending their Tabernacle Choir, in cream winter coats and jaunty tartan scarves, singing of purple mountain majesties and amber waves of grain, a dreamy but fictitious abstract which no more resembles the real America than The Chronicles of Narnia.

The most illuminating aspect of the ritual is how closely it resembles a genuine coronation, though in the execution it plays with a little less proper dignity and a dose of what Americans might crassly call "pizzaz".

And yet, born a colony which later gained its independence in the American Revolutionary War, there is a gentle and amusing irony in how much America, now grown up, mimics its distant parent.

If the inauguration's strange blend of ritual and ridiculous was not proof enough, then look no further than America's succession of de facto royal families: the Kennedys, Bushes, Clintons and, now, the Trumps.

Those families, with their oligarchic grip on American politics, have as firm a claim on the country's imperial lineage as Britain's Windsors, Tudors, Stuarts and Plantagenets.

It's also hard not to think back to Coney Island in 1939, when butcher's delivery boy-turned-real estate baron Fred Trump was flogging houses with balloons and The Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America playing from speakers on a 65-foot yacht presciently named The Trump Show Boat.

Proof, perhaps, that the knock-off Fabergé egg never falls far from the tree.

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