D.C. Residents Rush To Flee Ahead Of Trump Inauguration

As Republicans and conservatives are flooding the area for the Jan. 20 Inauguration, others can't wait to get out.

Washington, D.C. residents are fleeing the DMV area ahead of Trump’s inauguration, worried about the city’s energy. While Republicans and conservatives are flooding the area for the Jan. 20 Inauguration, others can’t wait to get out.

As reported by The Guardian, residents like Alejandra Whitney-Smith have plans in place for where to go for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration next week.

She explained, “It [inauguration weekend] coincides with my birthday weekend, which I usually do spend in D.C., but when the election happened, I told myself, ‘Oh, no, I can’t be here.’”

The time is particularly stressful for her, as her mother was working at the Library of Congress during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, which many claim was incited by Trump. “I just remember that feeling of fear for her and then also just concern for me being in the city. I just knew for me – I didn’t want to be around that sort of hostile negative energy.”

The Capitol insurrection took place when Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol building to stop the certification of electoral votes after Trump’s loss to Joe Biden.

Whitney-Smith said Trump “represents the ugly side of America that people don’t want to acknowledge.”

She added, “I guess I maybe mistakenly had a lot of faith that people saw what happened during the first administration and I figured we as a country wouldn’t regress,” she said.

Whitney-Smith, an attorney, reflected on what this time meant for her as a Black woman, especially after Trump beat out Kamala Harris in the election.

She said earnestly, “But I also know the reality of living in this country as a Black woman. As much as I wanted Harris to win, there was something in me that still told me that America was not ready for its first Black woman president. Not only that, she was running against Donald Trump who has an almost cult-like following that is so powerful.”

Whitney-Smith’s sentiment differs from the hundreds of conservatives flocking to D.C. Hotels are reportedly booked up to 70% as of Jan. 16, and rooms are going for between $900 to $1,500 a night.

The inauguration festivities in D.C. are not reflective of Trump’s prior opinions of Washington D.C. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump called the city a “filthy and crime-ridden embarrassment to our nation.”