USA TODAY International Edition
No president has faced what waits for Biden
Aim to unite but prepare to lead a divided nation
President- elect Joe Biden will deliver the 59th inaugural address during a tumultuous and unprecedented time in American history. The speech is scheduled to take place on the U. S. Capitol’s West Front, which was breached by rioters attempting to overturn an election just two weeks before Inauguration Day.
More than 20,000 armed National Guard troops and newly erected fencing will protect the inauguration from credible security threats involving domestic extremists. There will be no controversy over crowd size because the National Park Service has closed the National Mall to the public. Guests seated on the inaugural platform will have to be tested for COVID- 19 and wear masks, amid a pandemic that just passed a U. S. death toll of 400,000.
President Donald Trump, expected to depart for Mar- a- Lago just before Biden speaks, will be the first outgoing president to skip the peaceful transfer of power in over 150 years.
Inaugural addresses have followed wars, economic depressions, contested elections and impeachments, but no president has faced what awaits Biden as he tries to heal a wounded nation and move his policy agenda forward in his first 100 days. The words and actions of several presidents who confronted dire situations offer a clue of what we should expect to hear today.
What past presidents said
George W. Bush won the 2000 presidential election by only 537 votes in Florida during a race that was legally contested into December and finally settled by the Supreme Court. Despite the rancor surrounding the election, Bush thanked President Bill Clinton for his service to the nation and complimented Vice President Al Gore, who had beaten Bush in the popular vote, on his spirit and grace. The speech touched upon the generosity and dignity of Americans, before concluding that “an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.”
Like Trump, Andrew Johnson was impeached by the House and used incendiary rhetoric to sow division that was politically beneficial. Johnson blamed incoming President Ulysses Grant for his impeachment and did not attend the inaugural.
Abraham Lincoln gave his first inaugural address a month before the start of the Civil War. He warned that Americans must be friends instead of enemies and hoped the country would be touched “by the better angels of our nature.” Four years later, Lincoln delivered a short second address that stressed reconciliation as the war drew to an end. He had presided over numerous calamities and finished the speech by aspiring to close up the nation’s wounds “with malice toward none, with charity for all.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on the Great Depression in his 1933 inaugural address after a resounding victory over Herbert Hoover. He was confident the country would revive and prosper and said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
If Biden can curb COVID- 19 spread by persuasively selling safety precautions and solving vaccine distribution problems, America could move to “an era of good feeling” that was a cornerstone of FDR’s 1937 address.
Mandate to lead
Biden won a comfortable electoral victory in November and more than 81 million votes, which is the most ever by far for a presidential candidate. Conversely, over 74 million people voted for Trump, and the country remains as politically divided as ever. Though Trump won’t be in attendance Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence will be, and some positive sentiments should be directed toward him.
In his convention acceptance speech and November victory address, Biden said he would be president and work hard for all Americans no matter how they voted. He has also consistently said, like President Barack Obama before him, that there are no blue or red states, just the United States.
Again, Biden should echo the sage advice of past stalwart commanders in chief. Thomas Jefferson followed a president from a different political party, and during his 1801 inaugural address, he said differences of opinions are not the same as differences of principles: “We are all Republicans. We are all Federalists.” In his 1953 inaugural speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower began by praising the wisdom of cooperation and recognizing the importance of “differing political faiths.”
Biden should greatly distance himself from Trump’s “American carnage” message of four years ago, which was all about energizing the base and placating his supporters. Biden doesn’t need to go overboard by announcing that he is going to pardon Trump or call for a quick end to his Senate trial. There must be accountability, and President Gerald Ford’s empathy for Richard Nixon backfired politically.
Biden scored the largest election victory against an incumbent president since FDR in 1932. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt said restoration called for more than changes in ethics: “This nation asks for action, and action now.” Consistent with his “America United” inaugural theme, Biden should extend an olive branch to everyone who is watching, and even those who are not.
Hopefully this will be successful, but either way he must be prepared to lead — because he has a mandate to do so, and the magnitude of the present situation demands it.