200,000 Americans will speak for silent majority at swearing in of unfit president

"I had a dream that you would ask not what you could do for your country, but for me," Donald J. Trump will say after he is sworn in on Friday as the 45th president of the United States, according to cartoonist Shan Wells of the Durango Telegraph.

From Pulitzer Prize winner Chan Lowe of Tribune Content Agency.

EYE ON THE RECORD

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

All of the stories and commentary looking ahead to the swearing in of Donald J. Trump as president on Friday triggered a vivid inauguration memory of my own.

In January 1973, I was a reporter for the Hartford Courant visiting Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of President Richard M. Nixon.

On a bitterly cold day and amid protests against the Vietnam War, I watched from the curb as the limo carrying Nixon rolled by.

"Kill him! Kill him!" shouted two protesters running alongside the long black car.

Later, I met briefly with my newspaper's Washington correspondent, who incorporated that scene into his Page 1 story for the Connecticut daily the next day.

Trump inauguration

More than 200,000 people are expected in the nation's capital to protest the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States, according to a story in The Record today, though none will get as close to him as the protesters I saw in 1973. 

"An estimated 1 million people plan to demonstrate in all 50 states and 32 countries," USA Today reports (5A). 

Plans for this unprecedented protest against Trump, who has been called unfit to hold office and illegitimate, should have run on today's front page.

'Trump Tracker'

Another Page 1 story notes Trump has "even called school choice 'the new civil rights issue of our time,' to the outrage of critics who say the movement has worsened segregation and taken needed dollars away from regular public schools" (1A).

Today's piece on education is part of "Trump Tracker," a four-year series that will follow 14 issues important to "New Jersey taxpayers, residents and companies" that could be affected by Trump policies.

On Monday, the series discussed homeland security, and New Jersey's "political influence" in Washington after Governor Christie had a falling-out with Trump, his onetime BBF. 

Martin Luther King

A half-dozen stories in The Record -- five of them in Local -- report on celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The New York Times reported on Monday that all 50 states celebrate the federal holiday on the third Monday in January, but some states, cities and towns "package it as a broader celebration of both Dr. King and Confederate leaders."

Or as an art teacher I had in high school used to say, "Save your Dixie Cups. The South will rise again."