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Daily Bafflements

Inaugural balderdash

• Today in presidential aesthetics: commentators weigh in on Trump’s selection of (two!) bibles for his swearing-in and an oil painting takes aim at Obama in a bizarre echo of Trump’s promise that “the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer”—a fitting gift from the likes of Sean Hannity.

• As Washington celebrates the “peaceful transfer of power,” Sarah Jaffe joins our roster of regular columnists in a new, syndicated series of interviews with activists and organizers fighting back against the new(est) world order. We’ll be publishing “Interviews for Resistance” along with our friends at Truthout, In These Times, and others. You can start with her conversations with Kali Akuno, Legba Carrefour, and Erin Mahoney. Remember, the resistance has already begun.

• We’ve been thinking back on Megan Carpentier’s great essay on great men, and when their stories allow us to abdicate our collective responsibility for the course of history. As Carpentier writes, “the question isn’t whether Trump and his ilk are Nazis; it’s whether Americans are, or would be willing to accept it if they were.”