Danielle McLaughlin*
Opinion: In a ceremony that was at once ordinary and extraordinary, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr was inaugurated as the 46th American president on 20 January just before noon Eastern Standard Time.
Joe Biden is sworn in watched by his wife, Jill, who is holding their family Bible.
Photo: AFP
As Ronald Reagan had noted in his own inaugural address 40 years earlier, "in the eyes of many in the world, this every-four-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle."
Given that the US Capitol Building had been physically invaded by right-wing insurrectionists two weeks prior to Biden taking his oath of office, the fact of a public inauguration on those very steps was perhaps miraculous enough.