From prison vigils to inaugural balls, MAGA comes full circle
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. WASHINGTON—The last time Rebecca Lavrenz was here she was in a federal courtroom, standing trial for her participation in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan.
6, 2021. On Sunday, Lavrenz, 72, returned to the scene of the crime—this time in triumph. She had come to Washington to celebrate President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
So besieged was she by well-wishers and admirers that she kept misplacing her handbag in a hotel lobby packed with men in black ties and women in sequined gowns. With the distraction of Lavrenz’s red pumps, it was easy to overlook the black monitor around her left ankle. She had been found guilty and sentenced in August to six months of home detention.
Lavrenz learned on Thursday that a judge would allow her two days’ leave to attend the inauguration. “I get so emotional," she said, her face knotting in tears, as she tried to make sense of the past four years. “It makes me realize how much people love our country." A day earlier, Michelle Garthe, 61, a retired schoolteacher, was also overcome by emotion.
Garthe and her husband, Kevin, 62, had taken a train from Carbondale, Ill., to join the People’s March, a progressive protest against Trump. It turned out to be a pale and rainy version of the original Women’s March that confronted Trump after his first victory in 2016. While that garnered an estimated million attendees around the world—including Garthe—this one was estimated to have fewer than 30,000.
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