Politics

Biden's message of unity may not change the minds of ardent Trumpists


AMERICAN presidents have used their inaugural address to present their vision of the nation and set their goals for it, delivering in many cases some of the most eloquent speeches in US history that are still quoted today.

In his second inaugural address, delivered in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, urged his countrymen in this long paragraph to unite in the aftermath of the Civil War: “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.”

In his first inaugural address delivered in 1933 against the backdrop of the Great Depression, President Franklin D Roosevelt declared that “this great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper”, telling the American people that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”.

Urging Americans in the midst of the Cold War to prepare themselves for a long struggle with the Soviet Union, President John F. Kennedy sent them a very powerful message in his first inaugural address in 1961: “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

And there was this perplexing statement in President Donald J Trump’s first (and thankfully last) inaugural address in 2017: “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now!” That may have been a call for action on the part of the 45th president, but in an unexpected way, it ended up taking the form of a prophecy, of how America would look in the last days of his administration, in the aftermath of a violent assault on the US Capitol that he incited in the run-up to the inauguration of a new president.

Unlike presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy, Joe Biden – who was sworn in as the 46th president exactly where thousands of pro-Trump thugs had assembled to attack Congress two weeks earlier – is not known as a master orator.

In fact, President Biden – who as a child had to work hard to overcome his stuttering, which at the age of 78 he still sometimes battles – has admitted that oratory was not his strong suit, describing himself as a “gaffe machine” who has sometimes made garbled statements.

Yet, the veteran politician (who has served for four decades on Capitol Hill and later as President Barack Obama’s vice-president) has occasionally been able to prove himself as an exceptional speaker whose soaring prose could inspire his audiences with spellbinding oratory that was infused with emotion and that projected his sense of compassion and conviction, bringing people to tears, especially when he recalled the personal tragedies that he had to overcome in his long life.

During his inaugural address on Wednesday, President Biden demonstrated once again that when necessary, he could rise to the occasion, that the Elder Statesman who had stuttered as a child can deliver a coherent and inspiring address in the midst of a national crisis as the country tries to recover from a deadly pandemic and a devastating economic recession.

He may not be a Lincoln, an FDR or a JFK when it comes to his oratory skills, but in many ways, his inauguration is taking place at a time not unlike the Civil War, the Great Depression or the Cold War – tense periods in American history when national unity was crumbling and democracy itself came under threat. This time, it has happened, thanks in part to the American political carnage – or as the new president described it, “an uncivil war”, perpetrated by his predecessor.

It is too early to know whether his inaugural address would one day be added to the list of the most eloquent speeches in American history. It probably won’t. But it certainly may be recalled as a historic piece of oratory that marked a turning point from an era dominated by political divisions and crises stirred by demagogues like his predecessor in office, with their lie-filled rhetoric and race-baiting.

From that perspective, President Biden, like President Lincoln, was urging Americans to appeal to their “better natures”, contrasting his appeal filled with hope with the angry and dark vision that President Trump offered in his “American Carnage” inaugural address in 2017.

Without mentioning Mr Trump – who defied a presidential tradition of 150 years by refusing to attend his successor’s inauguration – or the Republican lawmakers who denied his electoral win, President Biden referred to the toxic mix of political demagoguery and misinformation that has split the country into adversarial tribes and expressed his confidence that the nation can be unified and regain its civility if it is able to deal with the challenges facing it.

“Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path,” he said. “We must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured. My fellow Americans, we have to be different than this. America has to be better than this. And I believe America is so much better than this.”

While refraining from attacking directly the Republican Party and its leaders, some of whom have questioned the legitimacy of his presidency, the new president did point out to white supremacy, domestic terrorism and racial injustice as posing threats to the national “soul”. He pledged to commit his “whole soul” to fighting those challenges and to make America “once again the leading force for good”.

He did not focus on specific foreign policy issues, but made it clear that the divisions America was facing has eroded the nation’s international standing.

The solution to these problems, including the “dark winter” of the coronavirus, “is not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don’t look like you or worship the way you do or don’t get their news from the same sources you do”.

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal,” he said. “We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.”

The president suggested that the election of Vice-President Kamala Harris – the first woman, the first African American, and the first Asian-American to occupy this top national position – was a sign that Americans could and should embrace change, and asked them to join him in tackling the country’s problems.

“I promise you we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era,” he said. “We will rise to the occasion.”

But will they?

President Biden will still be facing a powerful Republican Party whose leaders and supporters have made it clear that they believed Mr Trump should be occupying the White House, and who remain committed to Trumpism, or to the political culture of hate and division, and are not ready yet to approve the new leader’s nominees or policies. It is doubtful that the rhetoric of his inaugural address is going to change their hearts or minds, not to mention their souls.

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