#Joe biden speech full
It will require governing with full awareness of our differences-and with the fact that we are closely as well as deeply divided. Galston Wednesday, September 16, 2020Īnd then he promised, “I will always level with you.”Ī new beginning takes more than rhetoric and promises, of course. “There is truth and there are lies,” he told us. The reason is clear: never has truth been more necessary, or more endangered. Now, two weeks after an unprecedented assault on the Capitol by an insurrectionary mob of its own citizens, the new president faces a similar challenge-to avert conflict and to build anew on what we have in common.īut there was another, newer theme in President Biden’s inaugural address-an invocation of truth as the foundation of unity. Back then, however, the better angels of our nature were not strong enough to avert a disastrous civil war. But he reminded us that this has often been so throughout our history.Ĭalls for national unity at inaugurations are nothing new, of course-most memorably by Abraham Lincoln in 1861. “The forces that divide us are real,” he said. Biden acknowledged that calls for unity in our current circumstances can sound naïve, and he worked to dispel this impression. “My whole soul is in this-bringing America together,” he said.
But we cannot do it while divided against ourselves. “Democracy has prevailed.” We have much to repair, much to restore, much to build, much to heal–and much to gain. “We come together as one nation,” Biden declared. From the very beginning, these were the themes of his presidential campaign, and he adhered to them in the face of pressure from pundits and politicians to change course. It was a foregone conclusion that newly sworn-in President Joe Biden would speak of unity and democracy in his inaugural address. For some, the theme is “Let us continue” for others, “Let us begin anew.” Rarely has the latter seemed more apt-or necessary.
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