For Trump’s Second Inauguration, the Vibes in D.C. Are Very Different

It was Saturday afternoon and two men who voted for Donald J. Trump were wandering the frosty streets of downtown Washington, not quite sure where to go or what to do.

They had traveled far — one from Arkansas, the other from Louisiana — to watch Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Now it was being moved inside, and they didn’t know if they would make it into the arena where it was going to be broadcast come Monday.

“I’m kind of bummed, because we came all the way up here for it,” said one of the men, a 76-year-old retired Navy man from Fayetteville, Ark., named Bob Jaynes. “We talked to a lady today from Australia, and yesterday people from Hawaii, and at lunch people from New Mexico. So they’ve got to be all bummed out, too. It’s a long way to come, and it’s expensive to stay here.”

A 63-year-old bail bondsman from Oklahoma City named Tom Trepaignier stood in the shadow of the Washington Monument in yellowing caiman leather boots. He said he planned to watch the inauguration from his hotel room. He looked up and down at all the white marble on the National Mall and said it was still “really cool” to be there. “It’s like the Roman Empire.”

This is the moment Mr. Trump’s supporters have been waiting four long years to see. The ones who converged on the capital this weekend packed bars and got pulled around town in pedicabs blaring Village People. They did night sightseeing in Georgetown, marveling at the size of the federalist estates. They were excited.

But there was a curious split-screen playing out all weekend long.

On the streets of the nation’s capital, some of the most passionate members of Mr. Trump’s populist base were feeling a bit frustrated about all the canceled plans while tribes of Trump-loving elites partied wildly all around them but just out of reach.

Lobbyists and venture capitalists and tech billionaires gave champagne toasts aboard yachts and in downtown steakhouses and Kalorama mansions. It seemed a manifestation of one of the central paradoxes of the political movement Mr. Trump assembled — that the rich-who-are-about-to-get-a-whole-lot-richer can coexist easily with working-class voters who never seem to get invited the party.

On Saturday night, many a big shot convened on a Trinity yacht called “Liberty” that was anchored on the icy Potomac. The boat belonged to a very wealthy member of Mar-a-Lago who was giving a party for Matthew Swift, the founding partner of something called Montfort Group, which describes itself as “a strategic business intelligence firm providing bespoke executive advisory service and crisis management led by excellence and guided by a commitment to longevity and social responsibility.” (It’s based in Palm Beach, Fla.)

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the heart surgeon turned TV personality, was there, as well as some prominent attorneys, a few ambassadors, the president of Paraguay and lots of National Security types. A young lobbyist who worked in the first Trump administration sipped an espresso martini. Asked to describe the makeup of this party, he said, “God, this sounds horrible, but it’s an assemblage of the future 1 percent. This time around, it’s no longer the Trump people versus the establishment. It’s a marriage of the two.” A $399 signed copy of one of Mr. Trump’s coffee table books, “Letters to Trump,” sat on a table nearby.

The vibe in the capital was very different from Mr. Trump’s last inauguration. There were no mass protests, street fights or flaming limousines this time. “Last time, he didn’t get a fair chance,” said Brian Ballard, a top lobbyist who is in high demand as Mr. Trump takes office.

Mr. Ballard, whose firm threw a party at Mastro’s Steakhouse on Friday night, continued: “A million people showed up the day after the inaugural and protested him. The guy wasn’t president for 18 hours. This is a completely different deal. It’s going to be awesome.”

And yet, Mr. Trump looked menacing and wrathful in the official portrait he put out for his inaugural. “That photo is cool,” protested Mr. Ballard. “It brought back images of the first-term photo and the mug shot, sort of a nice blend.”

Over in Georgetown, a lavish party was being thrown at Cafe Milano. Men in pinstripe suits and women in pearls chomped on complimentary Davidoff cigars in a smoke-filled room while Washington’s perma-class — that collection of media figures, consultants and political operatives who always seem to do well no matter who sits in the Oval Office — stood three deep by the bar.

Mark Ein, a venture capitalist who has a stake in the city’s pro football team and who bought the old Katharine Graham mansion a few blocks east, stood beside Jack Evans, a local Democrat and D.C. fixture who was on the City Council for decades. He sipped a Peroni in his Brooks Brothers suit. The party was for a media startup called “Meet the Future.” Asked who he thought was paying for it, Mr. Evans said, “That I don’t know. I’m not.” It was being hosted with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.

Sean Spicer, who was Mr. Trump’s first press secretary, was also there. “Last time, when we entered office,” he observed, “there was a massive resistance from corporate America, corporate media and big tech.” Not this time!

On the first day of Mr. Trump’s last administration, he ordered Mr. Spicer to lie about something everyone could see with their own eyes. Infamously, he said: “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.” Asked if he had any advice for Mr. Trump’s new press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who at 27 will be the youngest person ever to have the job, Mr. Spicer said she had “advantages that I didn’t have. Number one, she’s worked in the office before, last term. Two, she has a fantastic relationship with President Trump that’s much deeper than I had.”

This was all very hard to stomach for liberal protesters who were in town for a march on Saturday that was way smaller than what formed in response to Mr. Trump’s inaugural in 2017. Two women who had traveled from New Jersey and Manhattan to march on the National Mall plopped down at a bar in the Penn Quarter that afternoon and poked glumly at a beef bourguignon. “It’s like a muted resistance,” sighed the Manhattanite, a 55-year-old woman named Liza Meneades who works in podcast ad sales. “I overheard someone at the bar saying, ‘Oh, we’re getting our country back.’ And I’m like, what the hell is this guy talking about? Back from what?”

She sipped some bourbon and said of Mr. Trump: “The White House doors are open, and he is for sale to the highest bidder. It’s blatant. It’s not even hidden.”

(On Friday, ethics experts gasped when Mr. Trump and his family began pushing a new crypto token called $Trump. By Sunday, they put out another new form of cryptocurrency: “You can buy $MELANIA now,” the soon-to-be first lady posted on social media, sharing a link to Melaniameme.com)

A few blocks away, Mr. Jaynes, the retired Navy man from Arkansas, was wandering by the Old Post Office Building, which is now a Waldorf Astoria. He and his fellow Trump supporters were impressed by the grand architecture and the clock tower, so they came to a stop at the hotel’s front step.

It used to be a Trump hotel, until the family offloaded it in 2022. Now there are rumblings they would like to get it back. Maybe that’s why the lobby bar was still such a scene for Trump-connected people this weekend.

Mr. Jaynes and his company watched as black Cadillac Escalades lined up to deposit wealthy looking people wearing bow ties and fur stoles on the front step. But not just anyone could walk in off the street. The hotel staff turned away those without a reservation.

“We just wanted to go in and see how the rich people do,” said Mr. Jaynes, “but we didn’t get to go in.”

Why not?

“Because we were white trash, I guess,” he said with a smile.