President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated tomorrow on the steps of the U.S. Capitol as the 46th President of the United States. He will take his oath of office together with Vice-President elect Kamala Harris, deliver his inauguration address, and after greatly reduced pomp and ceremony make his way directly to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Biden will be taking over the reins of government not only in the midst of an unspeakable health crisis but with a level of national economic dislocation not seen since 1932. In addition, Joe Biden will be assuming leadership of the country after it has just experienced an effort by thousands of Americans to take over the Congress, kill Members, and endeavor to destroy American democracy. The new President knows that the rioters were led into battle by a megalomaniacal, narcissistic President who could not accept his defeat in the 2020 election.
Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated for his second term on March 4, 1865, as the horrific, bloody Civil War was coming to an end. Forty-one days later, on May 9, Lincoln was assassinated and the job of “binding up the nation’s wounds” was left in the hands of the soon to be impeached President Andrew Johnson. America is still struggling today from the wounds Johnson created with his reconstruction fiasco.
While Lincoln’s second inaugural was held in the Capitol, F.D.R.’s fourth inauguration was held on the South porch of the White House on January 20, 1945, with no fanfare, no congressional luncheon, and no parade. On April 12, President Roosevelt died almost a month before V-E Day. He left the nation in the hands of Harry Truman, the former Missouri Senator who, at the time, did not even know of the existence of the Manhattan Project. Nevertheless, on August 8, Japan surrendered, World War II was over, and Truman would lead the nation assertively to confront the Russians in the Cold War.
The nation desperately needs a few moments of normalcy. The country has endured fourteen days of polarizing trauma. Americans are exhausted by what has transpired over the past year. They see only a glimmer of hope emerging as they fight the COVID-19 pandemic, raging unemployment, and frightening violence which are challenging the country’s leadership. This is abetted by an astonishing unwillingness in some political circles to accept the electoral will of the people.
After Lincoln, the Johnson years were divisive and traumatic in the wake of the horrors of the Civil War. With Roosevelt’s death an executive neophyte took over. Truman, however, fooled his detractors and even won re-election in 1948.
This is the challenge for the President-elect after the ceremonies are concluded. It will be his programs and his decisive action that he and the country will be judged.
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Today’s Footnote
As a result of the militant onslaught on the Capitol coupled with at least two known QAnon Members of Congress carrying guns into congressional buildings, there might be a possibility for legislative action on gun control. There are numerous weapons’ loopholes to be tightened. In this climate, a bi-partisan coalition could be created in Congress to address these guns and ammunition issues. Congress will not want to give the National Rifle Association a lifeline with a hot issue at this time. The NRA, in addition to declaring bankruptcy is moving its headquarters from New York to Texas to try to avoid litigation being pursued against the gun advocacy group in New York.
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