Wish You Were Here

Sometimes it is easier to see a person clearly—to perceive their qualities and their faults—through the eyes of someone else.

Whenever President Donald J. Trump does, says, or proposes something that tests the limits of my support, I endeavor to look at him through the eyes of my late mother.

Long before I recognized the merits of Trump or the MAGA agenda, my mother saw the future 45th and 47th president exactly as he was: as a businessman eager to settle intractable disputes with handshakes, a deal-maker anxious to hasten change with his signature alone (all of those executive orders!), an entertainer with a sense of how to capture and retain public interest, and a family man who plainly relishes his large brood. 

To my everlasting sadness, my mother died of cancer at age 79 in September 2023—when things looked particularly bleak for the then-former president, and when the obstacles that might hinder his return to the White House seemed most insurmountable. My mother was in the hospital when Trump had his mug shot taken in Georgia; back then, Ron DeSantis was all the rage among the Republican cognoscenti, and Vivek Ramaswamy got points with MAGA simply for pledging to pardon Trump. It seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?

My mother never saw Trump emerge victorious over lawfare, render his Republican opponents irrelevant, or evade an assassin’s bullet. She never saw Trump marshal sufficient voter trust to win a second and final term in office. She did not know how the story came out, but when I watched the inauguration on Monday, I couldn’t help but think of what she might have said.

She would have commented on the almost perfect irony of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh administering the oath of office to Vice President–elect J.D. Vance in the immediate proximity of Kamala Harris—surely an especially bitter pill for Harris, who, as a senator, endeavored with particular intensity to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation and who, as an emergency fill-in presidential contender, presented herself as so obvious a choice over Trump-Vance that even softball interviews were beneath her.

She would have asked what Vance’s mother must possibly be thinking while fixing her eyes on her son, one hand raised and the other on the Bible his wife was holding, repeating the words of the oath.

She would have tried to discern what Trump said to Vance, through a crooked smile and over applause, when he pulled his new vice president to him—she would have perceived the sense of shared mission between the two men.

She would have remarked on the surprisingly hushed, even humble tone in which Trump repeated the oath of office administered by Chief Justice John Roberts—at which point she would have also praised Melania Trump’s distinctive navy-and-white hat.

She would have said none of it seemed real until she heard the United States Marine Band play “Hail to the Chief”—and none of it really seemed real until she heard the 21-gun salute.

She would have praised the strong, pure voices of the U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club as they sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” while assembling in the Capitol Rotunda—for her, a far greater musical high point than Carrie Underwood. 

She would have commented on Trump’s look of solemn appreciation, his eyes seeming to close at one juncture, as the camera zoomed in on him while they sang, “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea / With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me”—for her, a sign of this unlikely president’s surprising sense of, if not reverence, occasion. 

She would have picked out of the assembled crowd the tranquil face of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on whose Covid-era skepticism and truth-telling she had come to depend upon during the pandemic.

Many hours later, at the inaugural parade, she would have been particularly appreciative of the presence of the marching students from the New York Military Academy—Trump’s alma mater that, she felt, had instilled in him a military-like discipline in spite of his lack of actual military service.

She would not have even been tempted to turn to the Ohio State–Notre Dame football game while watching Trump affixing his signature to untold numbers of executive orders—a signature which she had repeatedly admired for its crisp, well-defined contours. If anyone watching with her had attempted to change the channel, she would have objected vociferously. 

She would have noted the presence, in what was once again Trump’s Oval Office, of the countless pictures of his family members, especially his father and his mother—his expressions of loyalty to whom were, for her, a sign of his fundamentally good character.

I wish my mother had been able to rejoice at this unprecedented comeback, which I could not help but see through her eyes.

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