Hallelujah! Trump’s Gone. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris Have Taken the Reins
There is Always Light If Only We’re Brave Enough to See It -- Amanda Gorman
The 59th Presidential Inauguration took place this morning. There were cold breezes and snowflakes. A bunch of reporters proclaimed the ‘system worked.’ And most of America felt a great sense of relief.
After four years of Donald J. Trump trampling upon democracy’s norms, thumbing his nose at responsibility, and dragging the nation down into the sewers of smears, the ascension of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as elected leaders of this nation is indeed a very good thing.
Let's savor the moments. And then rededicate ourselves to a better future.
The ceremony itself was as American as apple pie. Senator Amy Klochubar led the program.
Amanda Gorman, who in 2017 became the first National Youth Poet Laureate in the United States, read poetry; a firefighter led (and signed) the Pledge of Allegiance. A priest and a pastor who are close friends of Mr. Biden led the invocation and benediction.
Lady Gaga wowed with the National Anthem. Jennifer Lopez sang a medley of This Land is Your Land and America The Beautiful. Garth Brooks sang Amazing Grace.
Vice President Kamala Harris was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Very cool.
President Joe R. Biden, Jr. brought along a hefty family bible to be sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts.
As expected, the newly sworn in chief executive gave an urgent plea for national unity.
“We will get through this together.”
In his first act as President, he called for a moment of silence for the more than 400,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19.
https://twitter.com/TTrogdon/status/1351940589181411331?s=20
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1351898440486309902?s=20
I’ll keep it short but sweet today, with a quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic piece, Donald Trump Is Out. Are We Ready to Talk About How He Got In?
One hopes that this moment for America has arrived, that it can at last see that the sight of cops and a Confederate flag among the mob on January 6, the mockery of George Floyd and the politesse on display among some of the Capitol Police, are not a matter of chance.
More, that Trumpism did not begin with Trump; that the same Republican Party some now recall in wistful and nostalgic tones planted seeds of insurrection with specious claims of voter fraud; that the decision to storm the Capitol follows directly, and logically, from respectable Republicans who claim that Democrats steal elections and defraud this country’s citizens out of their right to self-government.
This, of course, is not my first time contemplating the import of such things. “The First White President” was the culmination of the years I’d spent watching the pieces fall into place. Pieces that, once assembled, finally gave us Trump. I’m sorry to report that I think the article holds up well. This would be a much better world if it didn’t. But in this world, an army has been marshaled and barbed wire installed, and the FBI is on guard against an inside job. Whatever this is—whatever we decide to call this—it is not peaceful, and it is not, in many ways, a transition. It is something darker. Are we now, at last, prepared to ask why?
Moving forward requires us to grapple with our past.
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