By Donovan McNeal, Christian Marshall and Davis Dailey
Howard University News Service
From the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the countryside of Georgia, more than 20,000 supporters of President Donald Trump swarmed the Capital One Arena to commemorate his inaugural ceremony.
Originally, the inauguration was scheduled to be held outside but was moved inside to the Capitol Rotunda due to freezing temperatures.
In response to this transition, nearly 220,000 ticket holders moved to the Capital One Arena to view the inauguration.
Some stood outside for hours in 20-degree weather to celebrate the moment.
Trump supporter Nelson Duncan traveled over 900 hundred miles from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Capital One Arena to join the celebration.
“We waited in line for four to five hours, and we couldn’t get in,” Duncan said.
He joked about his experience, saying, “So you can say we survived a Trump line.”
President Trump’s inaugural speech, dubbed a “revolution of common sense,” covered a variety of topics centered around the beginning of “the golden age of America.”
According to Trump, “It’s all about common sense.”
This is an idea some of his constituents have echoed.
“I’m excited about him bringing back common sense,” said Louisiana Trump voter Vaughn Cedric. “For the last four and a half years, I’ve seen incompetence, and Donald Trump is the only president, to my knowledge, that can actually get the job done.”.
One of the president’s key talking points focused on his promise to implement numerous first-day executive orders.
These include plans to issue a national emergency on the U.S. southern border, evoke tariffs on foreign trading partners, and reduce inflation “caused by massive overspending and escalating energy prices.”

Vai Sway, a supporter of Trump, agrees with the president’s economic policies.
“What I’m most excited about for the next few years is lower prices on a lot of things and bringing back money to America where we’re not buying from foreign affairs.”
Outside of the issues mentioned in the executive orders, supporters cited their own personal reasons for endorsing Trump.

Stacey Wells from Detroit, Michigan, said that her vote mainly hinged on Trump’s plan to change the Department of Education.
The president previously mentioned eliminating the Department of Education in his campaign run.
“The regulations that have been put down on private and public institutions have been too stringent,” Wells said. “I’d like to see more funding like Trump did for historically Black colleges and also for the trades.”
In the speech, Trump attributed the rise of crime in U.S. cities to foreign gangs and, by extension, undocumented individuals.
“I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” Trump said.
He mentioned plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to eliminate their presence in the country. This law allows the president to deport or detain individuals of a foreign country without a hearing, it is based solely on their status of citizenship.
While discussing immigration, he said, “All illegal entry will immediately be halted. And we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
Duncan spoke about the amount of crime in the U.S. and hopes that Trump will reduce it.
“I’m just hoping that things will get safer in the more dangerous cities in America. In the big cities, in this city, Chicago, L.A.”
To conclude the event, Trump gave a rallying cry to the audience, reiterating that he would bring the nation to its “golden age.”
“From this day on, the United States of America will be a free, sovereign, and independent nation. We will stand proudly. We will dream boldly, and nothing will stand in our way because we are Americans. The future is ours. And our golden age has just begun,” he said.

However, not all of Trump’s supporters are convinced that this “golden era” will have longevity.
Carlos Fritz, who initially cast his vote for Kamala Harris, switched over to Trump’s side after his win.
“When a party’s hot, you just ride the wave,” Fritz explained.
Despite this reasoning, he said that he is still not a fan of Trump’s character because of his legal troubles. In May 2024 Trump was found guilty on 34 felony charges in a hush money trial. Additionally, the president was indicted on a charge of rigging the 2020 presidential election, but these charges were dropped in November of last year.
Fritz referenced the cyclical nature of recent U.S. economic struggles like the 2008 recession, to explain why he feels the Trump administration will experience similar problems.
He elaborated on this idea with a holiday analogy.
“When you go to Thanksgiving dinner and you eat that fresh hot turkey, you have leftovers for the next four weeks. That’s the same analogy for what Donald Trump is going to do. Things are hot right now, but they can get bad in about two years.”
Donovan McNeal, Christian Marshall and Davis Dailey are reporters for HUNewsService.com.