Biden Team Fears Inauguration Becoming ‘MAGA Rally on the Mall’ If Biden Supporters Don’t Show Up

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Democrats are reportedly fearful that Inauguration Day could look like a “MAGA rally” on the National Mall, with the mixture of enthusiasm among President Donald Trump’s voters and heightened fear of Covid-19 among presumptive President-Elect Joe Biden’s supporters posing a logistical challenge for the event.

“What do you do if our people don’t show up and his do?” an unnamed official involved with planning the January 20, 2021 event said in a comment to The Daily Beast. “They probably will, and the last thing you want is a MAGA rally on the Mall when Joe Biden is sworn in as president.”

Between 200,000 and 250,000 tickets to the event are doled out every four years. About 800,000 people were in Washington, D.C. for President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009, while more than 300,000 attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017.

For Biden, who has promised to take a strict approach to the coronavirus pandemic, there is also the issue of optics — in particular, the message he might convey by packing a quarter-million spectators on the two-mile National Mall. Cathy Russell, a member of the Biden transition team’s advisory council, acknowledged the problem in a Tuesday call with donors, and raised questions about what the inauguration might look like.

“There are a lot of conversations going on about that, and there certainly will be an inauguration in some form — we’re just trying to think about how best to do that in the context of COVID. It’s always this balance, right? Where he wants to do things responsibly and make sure that he’s not putting anybody in harm’s way.”

Trump supporters have expressed less concern about the pandemic, and have continued to hold events even after the election. That includes a “March for Trump” event scheduled to take place Saturday in Washington, which is aimed at protesting issues related to voting in a number of swing states.

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