Save this story for later. Among the firsts in Amanda Gormanâs inaugural poem, âThe Hill We Climb,â is the concept of democracy that it assumed. Democracy, according to the twenty-two-year-old poet, is an aspirationâa thing of the future. The word âdemocracyâ first appears in the same verse in which Gorman refers to âa force that would shatter our nation rather than share it.â The insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th took place while Gorman was working on the poem, although the âforce,â one may assume, is bigger than the insurrectionâit is the Trump Presidency that made the insurrection possible, and the forces of white supremacy and inequality that enabled that Presidency itselfââit / Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy / And this effort very nearly succeededâ the poem continues. âBut while democracy can be periodically delayed / it can never be permanently defeated.â