Cough syrup for the country: The inauguration of President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris
BETSY RATLIFFE: The recently infiltrated U.S. Capitol stood in the background and the noticeably absent crowd of cheering Americans stood in the foreground as President Joseph R. Biden delivered his inaugural address on Wednesday, January 20. With flags symbolizing the more than 403,000 lives lost to the coronavirus pandemic waving in the wind and images of insurrectionists storming the capitol still in my head, I could not help but feel as though the inauguration was one big gulp of cough syrup.
As a presidential term of chaos, division and loss came to an end, the historic inauguration day proved to be the medicine I, and I think America, needed after a long four year cold that was President Donald Trump. The snow flurries cleared in the afternoon in Washington, D.C. as President Biden and the first woman, Black and Southeast Asian Vice President Kamala Harris swore into a consequential presidential office. Notably absent from the ceremony was (now former) President Trump, which I believe only added to the healing that began on inauguration day. The event itself and Trump’s absence allowed America to step back from wondering what Trump would do next as our eyes are glued to the television screen. It allowed the country, for the first time not only in the last year, but in the last four years, to sit back and mourn together.
From a raging pandemic that the country has failed to get under control to the burgeoning call for social change after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and more to the horrifying effects of climate change creeping their way to our front door, America, and the world, has undergone insurmountable suffering. When we finally heard our nation’s leader (President Biden) acknowledge the pain of the last four years, it was like coming up for fresh air – painful, but necessary.
The efforts to show Vice President Harris walking and laughing with former Vice President Pence, three former presidents in attendance (President Barack Obama, President George H.W. Bush and President Clinton) or republican country singer Garth Brooks performance was a conscious production. There was a clear message of putting the past behind us, reconciling our differences and beginning the process of rebuilding a broken nation. However, even though the medicine made me feel better, I believe we would be naive to not recognize the significance and the truth behind the last four years.
The cracks in this country are not new, and they are not going away. If the last four years did anything right, it showed America who it was: a country of staunch division, where racial, ethnic and social discrimination lives on, and where in a time when Americans needed to come together to protect each other from a virus, we pulled further apart. The last four years did not create this. This pain and suffering have been a part of the United States for the last 200 years, and it will continue to do so unless we do something about it.
For me, the moment to breathe that was the inauguration doubled as a wakeup call. The work of this country is still far from over. I may not love the America we have right now, but I love the idea of what America could be. The medicine of the inauguration might not last forever, but it did do this: it reset me, it woke me up and it made me ready to fight for the America I want.
Betsy Ratliffe is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service pursuing a major in International Politics and a minor in Journalism.