Inaugural Memories
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
It could be the final paragraph of Joe Biden’s inaugural address this coming Wednesday, January 20th. America, strained in passion has found its “bond of affection” stretched to the breaking point. The “mystic chords” of our shared memory and history, of battlefields and patriots, our flag and anthem, seem not to be enough to hold us together. Our “better angels” seem absent.
I haven’t received an advance copy of the Biden Inaugural Address. This quote is not from Joe Biden’s text (at least as far as I know). It’s the closing paragraph of Abraham Lincoln’s first Inaugural, done from the same front portico of the Capitol building. And like Biden, Lincoln was surrounded by troops. The newly seceded Confederacy loomed close. Virginia, a bridge away across the Potomac, while still in question at the moment of Lincoln’s speech, but would soon leave the Union.
Militarization
And there’s more in common between Lincoln’s and Biden’s Presidential beginnings. Lincoln arrived in Washington aboard a special train from Baltimore, whisked through that city in the middle of the night. A plot to kidnap him was about in the secessionist city, and Lincoln was secreted through. Biden has travelled from his home in Delaware to Washington DC by train for his entire career. He planned on doing it again, one more triumphal ride from Wilmington’s Biden Station (yep, he’s been doing it that long) to Union Station by the US Capitol on Monday. But, like Lincoln, concerns for his security cancelled that journey. Biden will arrive in Washington on a Marine Helicopter (not Marine One – only the serving President gets that designation).
Protection
Security in Washington DC is as high as any time since Lincoln was sworn in. Seven thousand National Guardsmen line the streets and protect the buildings. Another fourteen thousand will arrive before Inauguration Day, to supplement the Federal police forces and the DC Metro police. Threats abound on the internet, despite the closing of social media to the insurrectionist mobs. They are still communicating, plotting, and preparing for their “day” of the QAnon “Storm”. The National Mall, where thousands always gather to watch the spectacle, is closed. There will be no argument over whose crowd was bigger, Obama’s, Trump’s or now Biden’s. Biden loses: the crowd is not allowed to enter.
Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington has asked folks not to come to DC at all. There is an evening curfew. Roads in and around the Capitol building are closed. Air B&B’s are cancelling their Washington reservations for the inauguration period. Hotels are cancelling suspicious bookings. There are no Inaugural Balls, though there will be some “virtual” concerts. For those with my musical bent: Carole King and James Taylor are among the performers. The other benefit – it will reduce the spread of COVID.
The Biden Agenda
The task ahead for the Biden Administration is as daunting as any President has faced since Lincoln. The economy is slowing crumbling under the weight of the pandemic. Unemployment numbers are growing, and the temporary reprieve of the last COVID relief package will run out soon. The “Build Back Better” infrastructure program might fix that, but there’s COVID to end first. The pandemic itself is growing. By the time Biden takes the oath of office on Wednesday, more than 400,000 Americans will be dead from the disease. The Civil War death total of 600,000 is not far in the future.
The vaccine distribution is far behind the “Operation Warp Speed” goals. But more insidiously, the entire process of combatting COVID is mired in political tension. Wear a mask, get the vaccine; support Biden. Don’t wear a mask, refuse the vaccine, support Trump. With millions of Americans conflating politics and medical science, Biden must find a way to depoliticize the path to recovery, or the pandemic will be prolonged for months, even years.
As if not enough, there are the heavy expectations of Democrats: reforming policing, health care, student loans, diversity in government. And, by the way, don’t forget climate change, and the America’s role in the world.
Reunification
Beyond all of that, our nation is so divided that thousands thought it was “OK” to invade the Capitol building to stop Congress last week. It takes a paradigm shift: IF you believe that the Presidential election was stolen, as the President, his minions, and right-wing media claim, then it’s not too far a leap to determine that Congress was the final “rigging” of the election. Sure there were the “crazies,” from Proud Boys to QAnon to Boogaloo, but there were a lot of folks that honestly thought they needed to “stop the steal”. The fact that they are misinformed insurrectionists doesn’t change their personal certainty. Biden needs to combine determined accountability for the acts of insurrection, with the need to bring as much of the nation together as possible. As Lincoln said, in his second inaugural:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
Lincoln never got the chance. God Speed, Joe Biden.
