Biden inauguration: New leader’s bid to restore America’s soul

US President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and family walk the parade route after Biden's inauguration. Picture: AFP

Joe Biden’s metaphysical pledge is to restore the soul of America. His political quest is to achieve this through the restoration of national unity.

In an inaugural speech classical in its soaring words and folksy in its delivery style, the President has invoked the traditions — patriotism, democracy and renewal — to confront “our historic moment of crisis”.

The repudiation of Donald Trump is dramatic. Biden seeks a restoration of American virtue where Trump’s inaugural pledge was to fight American carnage. Where Trump left the nation mired in chaos and outrage, Biden seeks to resurrect dignity and respect among the citizenry.

This was a magnificent oration. Yet its magnificence constitutes the searing judgment that Biden invites of himself. Can America be unified and reconciled as Biden pledges? Does Biden possess the skill and courage to govern for all — thus honouring his sacred speech — or will these words be consigned to trash on the steps of the Capitol?

Biden spoke as a nonpartisan in an age drenched in partisanship. He seeks to rise above and conquer the evils of the age. His task, presented as a holy mission, is a presidency that transcends the partisan fury that erupted during the rise of Trump, a fury on both the right and left.

This makes Biden’s pledge epic in its scope: to defy and to quell the partisanship that engulfs America’s culture, threatening its peace and prosperity. It demands a different presidency. It demands that President Biden transcend the ­entrenched warring factions — both the ideological progressives who backed him and the Trump nativist extremists who ­opposed him. Many partisans on either side will fiercely resist this appeal.

Herein lies Biden’s supreme challenge. He will be judged, ultimately, by his actions, whether he can respect his opponents and restrain his friends. Biden knows he cannot succeed alone — he needs the American people, “all of us” — to work with him because “this is a great nation and we are a good people”. There is a grace and ­humility about this President who halted his speech for a national prayer for the victims of the ­pandemic.

Biden grasps the inflection point of history that he occupies. He recognises the malaise sapping American’s spiritual heartland. Biden’s language was that of ­President and priest. He invoked Washington, Lincoln, Martin ­Luther King and Saint Augustine in ­defining the common elements of love shared by all Americans: opportunity, liberty, security, respect and truth among others.

Biden wants a new beginning. But his presidential inheritance is appalling — and he confronted the American people with the list: democracy under assault, a raging virus, growing inequality, systemic racism and a climate crisis.

“The fact is we face them all at once, presenting this nation with the gravest of responsibilities,” Biden said.

This inaugural speech was located in the political centre and steeped in the language of faith and tradition. Significantly, it was devoid of woke sentiment. The event was marked by American aspiration and patriotic singing yet possessed a Spartan toughness with few spectators and many troops.

This was a democracy under internal siege — the departing legacy of Trump, the political criminal who tried to deny Biden’s win and cling to power.

Compassion amid resolution defined Biden’s speech. More than any inaugural since the Civil War era, he addressed the internal threat to American democracy and the contest over the meaning of the American compact.

Biden spoke from the stairs of the Capitol just days after its invasion by an angry mob. His most solemn promise was that the agents of violence seeking “to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy” will never prevail: “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

Yet Biden’s task is unprecedented. He must repudiate Trump’s legacy but must reconcile to the election result the 75 per cent of 74 million Americans voting for Trump who believe the election was stolen. Biden’s drive for unity does not extinguish his intent to drive Trumpism from the body politic.

While Trump was the name that never fell from Biden’s lips, the new President knows that victory in the ongoing political war with Trump is indispensable to the unity he seeks. Biden’s appeal for renewal came amid Trump’s menacing threat — warning that “the movement we started is only just beginning”. Trump slouches out of Washington having done incalculable damage to the institutions and culture of the great democracy.

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural against urban, conservative against liberal,” Biden said. But how? His answer went to the heart, the spirit and human charity: “We can do this if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts. If we’re willing to stand in the other person’s shoes just for a moment. My fellow Americans, in the work ahead of us, we will need each other.”

This is a straight appeal to better angels of America’s nature, originating in religious faith, long sealed in mutual self-interest and sustained by a history of renewal from many crises. This inauguration is a threshold moment in the American story: will Biden succeed in rallying the better angels or has the poison seeped too far into the system?

Does Biden really mean what he says? The judgment will come fast. If you want unity you don’t impeach Trump and make him into a political martyr. You don’t succumb to identity politics. You don’t pretend the anger and violence just comes from one side. You don’t say only one side is trading in lies. You don’t treat Trump voters as deplorables. If Biden cannot meet these tests he cannot secure the unity that will define his presidency. And he will fail with everything that means.