What Went Down During Joe Biden’s Inauguration

This was in so many ways an unusual Inauguration Day because of the pandemic, and yet it was also refreshingly usual in its familiarity. It is also of course a historic moment as the first Black, first Asian and first woman vice president was sworn into office. In these ways it was a very apt beginning to 2021: uncertain, a bit different, a bit hopeful, with lots of work ahead.

Not to be missed, Amanda Gorman, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, currently delivering a powerhouse of a poem.

Well, with the caveat that I had streaming problems and missed some of the speech, I will go back to the question I posed earlier about the use of history to establish continuity today, since many of the usual traditions were interrupted by the pandemic and the exceptional nature of the outgoing administration and the last four years (see: Trump not attending). I think this is what we saw — lots of references to Lincoln and the Civil War, to the founders and to the other living former presidents.