Racism was the core of Trump’s politics. The country divided along the lines of the Civil War and of post-reconstruction America. In his inaugural address, Biden acknowledged this reality. His Administration will prioritise tackling the pandemic but success with that and other key policy areas will depend on winding down the “uncivil war”.
Biden spoke of the crises occurring simultaneously: “an attack on democracy and truth” and “a raging virus, growing inequity, the sting of systemic racism, a climate in crisis, America’s role in the world”. He said that these circumstances present the US with “the gravest responsibilities we’ve had”.
Following the inaugural oaths and ceremonies, Biden went to the White House and began signing major executive orders, beginning with Covid-19, an expanded program of vaccinations, and overturning a number of Trump’s orders, such as those withdrawing the US from the Paris Accord on climate and denying status to the children of refugees.
Biden will send to the Congress, immediately, a massive economic stimulus and support package in response to the pandemic.
Such urgent concrete action reveals the character of the new Administration. It is determined to use government to address the concerns and needs of the bulk of the people.
The ability of the Biden/Harris team to implement its agenda will depend, however, on the politics of the circumstances they have been handed.
The climate of lies generated by Trump and some media has not evaporated. For example, a majority of Republican voters continue to believe Trump’s claim that the election was stolen from him; 70+ million people voted for Trump.
Biden spoke directly of this in his address: “There is truth and there are lies, lies told for power and for profit. And each of us has a duty and responsibility…especially as leaders…to defend the truth and defeat lies.”
Clearly their task will be formidable, but help may be coming from the most unpredicted of quarters – Republican leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell.
He stated in the Senate, the day before the inauguration, that he has now come to the view that the attack on the Capitol on January 6 was directed by President Trump, that it was right he was impeached. Shortly before those remarks, he also said he favoured Republican senators being allowed a free vote in the impeachment trial of Trump.
It appears the scene is being set for a sufficient number of Republican senators to join the Democrats in finding Trump guilty of the charges for which the House impeached him, following the January 6 insurrection.
This would prevent Trump from ever again holding any official office within government; and that would appear to be McConnell’s objective – to free the party from Trump. This might help settle the other civil war taking place – that within the Republican party.
The central reality of all this, including the cult-like support of Trump, is the underlying tension and dysfunction that persists within the US polity.
Biden recognized this in his address, calling on people “not to turn inward, to retreat into competing factions, distrusting those who don’t look like you or worship the way you do, or don’t get their news from the same sources you do. We must end this uncivil war”.
Biden’s address contained echoes of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, in particular, Lincoln’s characterization of the motivation of those remarks: “With malice towards none, with charity for all.”
The Civil War ended 165 years ago but has never been laid to rest. Biden seems to recognize the dreadful extent to which Trump had revived, massaged and exploited its continuing fault lines and, the need for them, particularly systemic racism, to be defeated.
He has a massive job on his hands. Vice President Kamala Harris will help.
Richard Butler AC Former Ambassador to the United Nations, Executive Chairman of UN Special Commission to Disarm Iraq, Professor of International Affairs.
Comments
10 responses to “Joe Biden’s Inauguration: “We must end this uncivil war””
We’ll soon see whether Biden’s words mean anything. Trump was a bumbler. Biden is certain to lead a very effective war machine, as did Obama. After the Democrats’ role in blocking a stimulus package for 6 months which made imperative that people go to work, virus or not, I am puzzled to find the source of your optimism.
It’s looking pretty good.
His first day on the job, Biden sent troops into Syria. On the domestic front, he cancelled any chance of any discussion of a public option for healthcare in the middle of a pandemic that’s killed more Americans in a single year than died in WW2 and shows no signs of abating. Wall Street went off. Remember the party scene in The Wolf of Wall Street? It was like that.
And of course we’ve heard him preach it about America being back to lead the world and contain China.
His legacy’s off to a fine start, looks set to top Obama’s big time. I reckon he’ll do the Democrats proud.
He doesn’t have the pretty turn of phrase like Obama, of course, or the good looks or charisma, but he has the folksy vibe going. Little bit bumbling, personable and ordinary. People call it “decent”, so it works for him. Not bad marketing at all. Not dissimilar to our own PM’s daggy dad from the suburbs brand, really.
US politics in essence, are all about selling out the government to oligarchs with a pretty face.
POTUS, as DJT found out, is the least of the three estates.
Play acting for four years while the dollar burned was fun, but now the pros are back in charge. Pillaging the USA will now move up a gear.
Soon, the divided and ruled will be mean enough to attack whomever is implicated in the next Pearl Harbor or 9/11. Look! 23 Saudi passports! Let’s attack Afghanistan and Iraq! Japan had better hand over the plutonium…. soon!
Biden publicly calls for an end to ‘this uncivil war’, but his actions and the rhetoric of the Democrats suggest otherwise when talking about Trump supporters and the danger of ‘domestic terrorism.’
“an attack on democracy and truth”
Democracy and truth were under threat long before Trump was coughed up! If fact its demise is one of the reasons he was coughed up!
Joe Biden muttered some platitudes. Most people have already forgotten them, probably including Joe Biden.
After being bashed with 24/7 “Trump is bad” news we are now punished with 24/7 of “Biden is great” news.
We are 100 percent correct to say that Democrats’ refusal to do the right thing from 2008-2016 directly provoked the rise of Trump, a politician whose only utility in world history is that he showed just how insistently the American system and its political/cultural elite refuse to help the lower classes of their own nation and of the world.
Biden has much to reverse, but both his record and that of the Democratic Party give us what grounds for optimism?
An excellent summary
I think Richard Butler knows full well that democracy and truth were on the way out years ago as well. After all, he was a key UN weapons inspector in Iraq who spoke out about G W Bush’s claims of weapons of mass destruction being false over and over again. If he had been listened to by the US, there would not have been a war.
The most interesting aspect of this article is the notion that McConnell may be of vital importance in neutralising Trump and his followers obtaining another presidency. McConnell has been one of the worst hypocrites the Republicans have produced. Forever supporting the antics of Trump, abusing the general accepted norms in Congress for his own (Republican) benefit and silently standing by when Trump was stirring real trouble regarding the Capitol, he suddenly turned around and spoke out against Trump when the ground became too hot under his feet. That said, one must conclude that it is probably very wise of Biden if he can work with McConnell to take the heat out the fascist turn in politics during the Trump years and indeed end the “uncivil” war and suspend any personal feelings he might have about McConnell and serve the interest of the country first.
I have had very little time for McConnell. Yet I am heartened by his recent actions. Like any politician who is a professional politician, he knows when and how to play whatever his role may be.
Now McConnell’s role is to excise the cancer that is Trump and to plant, fertilise, nourish and cultivate a relevant philosophic/political alternative.