Inauguration addresses — traditionally delivered after a president has taken the oath of office — usually are more thematic rather than specific, and the speech delivered by President Joe Biden on Wednesday was no different.
The twin themes of the day were “democracy” and “unity.”
The inauguration of Biden marked the 59th presidential inauguration in American history — the first was that of George Washington on April 30, 1789 in New York City — and every one since the first has marked a peaceful transfer of power. Usually, the outgoing president shares the stage, and is lauded in some way by the incoming president. Despite all the emphasis on unity, Trump’s name was never spoken during the entire ceremony. He was not there, having flown home to Florida this morning.
In 1801, John Adams, the first president to be defeated for reelection, took an early morning stage out of Washington, D.C., rather than attend the inauguration of the man who had defeated him, Thomas Jefferson.
From the beginning of today’s of ceremony, Americans were told that we are a “democracy,” almost to the point sounding religious. In fact, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who co-chaired the Inauguration Committee with Senator Roy Blount (R-Mo.), even said that they were all standing in front of the “temple of our democracy.” In his remarks, Republican Blount repeatedly called the United States a democracy, rather than a republic.
The only time the word “republic” was uttered was during the Pledge of Allegiance.
Of course, the Founders would have recoiled. James Madison, for example, specifically rejected the word “democracy” to describe the form of government the Constitution had created, because he believed the purpose of government is to defend life, liberty, and property, rather than to allow the majority to trample those rights.
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Lady GaGa delivered a good rendition of the National Anthem, and Garth Brooks concluded the festivities with a reasonable interpretation of “Amazing Grace.” Jennifer Lopez also sang a medley of songs, including “This Land Is Your Land,” and “America the Beautiful.” Lopez is probably unaware that “This Land Is Your Land” was written by Woody Guthrie, who was a regular contributor to an official newspaper of the American Communist Party, at a time when it was recognized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union. Guthrie’s song was partly an attack on the concept of private property.
Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor was lauded as the first “Latina” to administer the oath of office to a vice president, Kamala Harris. Harris herself was praised as the first African-American and the first woman to take the oath as vice president.
Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office to Biden, and his speech continued the theme that America was a democracy, with such opening lines as, “This is democracy’s day,” speaking of “the cause of democracy,” and that “democracy has prevailed.”
Biden mentioned the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic, saying that as many Americans had now died from the virus as died in World War II. He also cited the economic consequences of the virus, with jobs lost and businesses closed.
He only lightly touched on political issues, but he did say that the planet is crying for survival, and that white supremacy and domestic terrorism must be defeated.
Biden turned to the theme of unity, calling for Americans to unite together to fight our common foes of lawlessness, joblessness, and extremism. He said that Americans should not see each other as “adversaries,” and instead should “lower the temperature” in the country.
He affirmed the right of peaceful dissent, and pledged to work as hard for those who did not support him as those who did. In his effort to promote the theme of unity, Biden said we must end the division of red versus blue, and set aside politics to fight the virus.
Of course, a Biden speech would not be complete without a gaffe. In his effort to emphasize unity, he mentioned Roe v. Ervin. Of course, the Supreme Court case of 1973 that declared abortion to be a constitutional right was Roe v. Wade.
Next, in a probable slap at Trump’s “America First” agenda, Biden vowed to “engage the world again,” by being not an example of our power, but leading by the power of our example.
He concluded his address by saying, “I give you my word to defend the Constitution, our democracy, and our America.”
Chris Wallace of Fox News, who has proven to be a friend of Biden and certainly no friend of Trump, called it the greatest inaugural speech he had ever heard, specifically saying it surpassed that of John F. Kennedy and his famous, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country” and of Ronald Reagan, who said, “In our present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”
Despite the theme of “unity” that pervaded the inaugural address, it appears that Biden’s fellow Democrats are in anything but a mood of unity, with some calling to put those who worked for President Donald Trump on some sort of jobs blacklist, and questioning whether white national guard troops could even be trusted to protect Biden and the other dignitaries at the event.
Dana Perino noted that Biden was planning on signing 15 executive orders on his first day, most countering the policies of the previous administration. Apparently, unity means falling in line with the agenda of the Left, from abortion to climate change.
With a Senate divided equally between Democrats and Republicans, and a House of Representatives almost equally divided, it remains to be seen just how much “unity” there will be in our nation’s Capitol. For those who desire to see limited government, the best we can probably hope for is gridlock.
