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Joe Biden’s Inauguration, just days away, takes place at a moment of upheaval, violence, and profound division. Even as the nation continues to absorb an unprecedented attack on our democracy, we look to a new Administration to propose a different course.
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This week, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces on Presidential Inaugurations and Inaugural Addresses. In “Ask Not, Tell Not,” Louis Menand writes about the story behind John F. Kennedy’s influential and inspiring address at his Inauguration, in 1961. In “Can Biden’s Center Hold?,” Evan Osnos examines whether Biden will be able to unite a fractured nation. In “A Dark Inaugural,” Benjamin Wallace-Wells explores the stark, divisive rhetoric of Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address, in 2017. (“There were no nods to ‘the sacrifices borne by our ancestors,’ which Obama spoke of in his first Inau