UPDATE: JANUARY 20 – We officially have a new President and Vice President of the United States. If you missed any parts of today’s inauguration, or just want to re-watch any parts you might have wept through the first time around, you can catch up with the video clips below. Events continue into the afternoon and evening, including appearances by Jon Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, and others.
JANUARY 18 – It would be impossible–and maddening and tragic, though occasionally beautiful–to list all of the ways in which the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be unusual and historic. But, suffice it to say, it’s certainly going to be a day that many, many people have been eagerly awaiting. While the in-person affair will lack some of the traditional trappings, we can at least watch the public proceedings from wherever we are.
Save this story for later.
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.
Sign up for Classics, a twice-weekly newsletter featuring notable pieces from the past.
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
So help me God
By John Vivian Cooke.
Exactly on the stroke of noon on 20 January, Donald Trump will be out of office. There will be no more lies, frauds, outrages, or broken laws from President Trump. His presidency as a whole, and the violent death throes of its final days, have stretched democratic norms to their breaking point, but the inevitable messy end of his term proved the resilience of the US Constitution.
Some of the dangers they sought to guard against were instability, confusion and attempts by factions to mask violence under the Constitution
The drafters of the Constitution foresaw exactly such a demagogue. They published extensive commentaries addressing concerns about the effective operation of republican forms of government. Their plan sought to resolve the paradox that without order there can be no freedom; to give sufficient powers to the government to allow it to fulfil its essential functions without diminishing the liberties of citizens. Som
By Lexi Lonas - 01/06/21 12:08 PM EST
Members of the D.C. National Guard are wearing black vests instead of their typical camouflage vests during pro-Trump protests in Washington, D.C., this week.
The D.C. National Guard announced they will be switching their vest colors from Jan. 5 to 7 as thousands of the president s supporters flock to the city to protest Congress s certification of President-elect Joe Biden
D.C. National Guard spokesperson Capt. Tinashe T. Machona said the change in colors highlights a different mission from the camouflage vests and are typically worn for domestic support operations, such as the response to protests against police brutality and racism in the city last summer.