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inauguration


  • To Save Democracy, We Need Historical Memory to be "Hot"

    by Shannon Bontrager

    Historical memory can run hot or cold; hot memory, when we make ourselves vulnerable to the pain of the past, is a force that will ensure America doesn't just move on from the needless death of the COVID pandemic or the violence of the Capitol insurrection without committing to justice and accountability.



  • Amanda Gorman's Success Stirred A Bleak Undercurrent

    by Manisha Sinha

    Some critical response to young poet Amanda Gorman's Inaugural reading echoes the racist dismissal and condescenscion contemporaries leveled at the founding-era work of Phillis Wheatley.



  • Why Biden’s Inaugural Address Succeeded

    Joe Biden's inaugural address won't be remembered as a masterpiece of rhetoric. But it succeeded in presenting an authentic and realistic picture of Biden's plans to lead the nation in crisis, argues The Atlantic writer. 


  • Biden's Inaugural and the Return of History

    by Paul J. Welch Behringer

    Joseph Biden's inaugural address signals a willingness to return to learning from history that may encourage the empathy and humilty elected officials need to solve the nation's problems. 


  • The Politics of an Inauguration Unlike Any Other

    by Michael A. Genovese

    Joe Biden's inauguration will be unlike any other, but he will need to draw on inaugural traditions of declaring purpose and invoking solidarity if he is to begin to repair national division.


  • Restoring Civil Society by Executive Order?: An Inaugural Reverie

    by John L. Godwin

    Joe Biden should defend the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly by a temporary emergency order criminalizing the carrying of firearms at public protest events and make clear that the threat of force is not part of the democratic process.



  • Trump’s Washington Wedding

    by Jill Lepore

    An American Inauguration is like a wedding: the President is the groom, the people his bride. Donald Trump is about to pledge his troth. It didn’t always work this way, and, really, it shouldn’t. Washington isn’t Vegas.