This is Democracy – Episode 132: Presidential Inaugurations

[0:00:03 Speaker 1] This’ll Is Democracy, a podcast that explores the interracial inter generational and intersectional [0:00:11 Speaker 0] unheard voices living in the world’s [0:00:13 Speaker 2] most influential democracy. Welcome to our new episode of This Is Democracy. This week is Inauguration Week. We’re going to focus today on the history of presidential inaugurations, why they matter what they’ve done in the past and what we can expect to come out of this inaugural moment with a new president in 2021 we have with us a good friend and one of the foremost scholars and public intellectuals writing around about presidents and about presidential images and the use of the media by presidents and particularly about presidential rhetoric. This is David Greenberg. He’s a professor of history and journalism and media studies at Rutgers University. He’s the author of three really important books. His first book, Nixon. Shadow. The History of an Image, which is really a groundbreaking book on, really transformed the way many of us, including myself, think about Nixon’s manipulation of his image as a politician and as a post politician. David wrote a wonderful biography of Calvin Coolidge, and then most recently he published a terrific book, A Republic of Spin inside history of the American presidency. Looking over time and how presidents have used the media to spin their image and transform and mobilized rhetoric for purposes of policy making and leadership. David writes frequently. I’m sure you’ve seen his byline in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Atlantic Foreign Affairs Dedalus, dissident descent Excuse me, dissident and dissent and many other scholarly and popular publications. David, thank you for joining us today. [0:01:59 Speaker 0] Sure, sure. My pleasure to be with you [0:02:02 Speaker 2] before we turn to our discussion with David. We have, of course, our scene setting poem for Mr Zakari. Siri. Zachary, What is your title of your poem today [0:02:11 Speaker 1] for President Biden upon his inauguration? Let’s hear it, Maestro. This country you inherit seeps into the sea and opens hungrily from the desert plains into gaping mountains. This broken family you have come toe lead is at its core invisible. You cannot find it with the naked eye. Its nucleus is floating just beyond the spectrum. We can see, but our bones conf eel it our bones conf feel it with a juvenile sort of faith that America will not disappoint once we have the foresight to invent the microscope and find its fragile little beating heart of a soul magnified gloriously the reflection of our eyes. I think maybe you can almost see it. It is floating inconspicuously from here to there like a swing, but now it is projected in your eyes. And maybe just for a moment, it is beginning to whisper. It’s secret longings in your ear. It’s desires, crude and inescapable. It’s fears, I’m sure by now you know them all too well. And yes, it is true. It’s infantile loves. Oh, the glory of its fleeting passion for a sunrise, the cool glimpse of the softly glowing grass beneath the swirling, unfolding and ever unceasingly moving colors bound to make sense some day. Do not forget this. Do not forget this. You today can hear America singing and howling and repeating loop on loop 300,000 times The mourner’s prayer. Do not forget this. Do not forget this. When you have tired of it’s disingenuous confessions. It’s undeniably absurd fascinations when you have seen too many of the creeping hatreds off the corners of our hearts, you must now explore. Do not forget this. Do not forget how much [0:04:07 Speaker 2] we love a sunrise. I love the imagery and the repetition of Do Not Forget this in your poem. Zachary. What is your poem about? [0:04:17 Speaker 1] My poem is really about the tragedy and in some ways that the pessimism of a moment like this. But I think also at its core, it’s really about the hope and the possibility of a moment like this and how we can turn that tragedy and that pessimism into something better. [0:04:33 Speaker 2] Well, David, I think that’s a perfect spot to turn to. You do. Inauguration speech is historically matter. Do they make a difference, especially for generating hope in difficult moments? [0:04:43 Speaker 0] Well, first, let me say that that’s Ah, wonderful poem is actually quite talented poet and, you know, I think hit on a lot of the key themes that Biden is gonna have to confront and, as you say, making a difference. What kind of a difference can he make with the speech? You know, it’s rare that inauguration speech has riel concrete material effects, you know, direct outcomes, but it’s not all that rare for them to set a tone to lay down some principles, you know, to establish an agenda to express certain hopes, and in all those ways, it is an important moment. Toe open the presidency. It’s when the new president articulates his vision of what the job is for him and also what the job is for his audience, which is the whole nation. And both of those, I think, are important parts of the equation, what the president means to do and what it’s incumbent on the country. To Dio [0:05:52 Speaker 2] and David, what are some ways in which presidents have been effective? In doing this? We tend to remember certain lines. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Ask not what your country can do for you. Is it the turns of phrase, or is it something else that presidents can leverage in this moment, as you say, to create a tone that helps their administration? [0:06:11 Speaker 0] Well, I think it is. It is often the turns of phrase that stay with us, but they stay with us often not just because they’re poetic or have a nice sort of classical ring or structure to them, but because they captured something important about the message. So, for example, Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural, you know, nothing to fear but fear itself is one of the most important. FDR obviously inherited the presidency at a time off great despair. We were in the depth of depression, a new banking crisis on top of the Depression that had plagued the country for several years on. And so his job was not just to reassure and inspire, but to show a certain commanding presence as the executive, as someone who meant to act forcefully. And he really did all those things. And I do think, even though he won that election, you know, in in a landslide that inaugural was important in marshaling the confidence of the nation for this very aggressive 100 days that he had in front of him. So that’s That’s perhaps the greatest example. You know, Lincoln’s first inaugural was an effort to hold the union together. Obviously, that did not succeed. And yet it’s still, I think it’s established. Atone for his presidency off his commitment to union that would stayed there throughout the Civil War and and kind of gave his presidency a certain majesty even in its darkest times. So it need not result directly in a steps forward in positive outcomes for it to be an important inaugural. [0:08:02 Speaker 2] One of the things that most presidents president elect try to do is they try to write a memorable inaugural address. They try to hire someone to write that address for them. What are the things in your close study of presidential image making and rhetoric? What are the tactics that have succeeded in producing a worthwhile inaugural address? Because obviously many of them are quite forgettable. [0:08:25 Speaker 0] Yeah, and the truth is, most of them are forgettable. And especially, I think, in our own age there’s sort of a mismatch between sort of the high classical oratory that we expect from the inaugural and that, you know, John F. Kennedy’s is probably if we wanna call 1961 recent. So the best recent ah, girl address. But you know, already today that idiom that way of speaking is it’s not how presidents normally talk between, you know, television and you know so much informal interviewing and press conferences and short comments. And now throw in Twitter and Trump. You know that high flown oratory can seem very forced and mannered, and and so I think presidents on Inauguration Day on in their speeches struggle to hit the right tone. Do they want to do something that’s more chatty, personal in the way that they’re sort of trained to speak in all other situations? Or do they sort of want to try to rise and and meet the occasion? The phrases the calm ones that tend toe work, I think, have a certain, you know, classical symmetry. No. Chiasson Mas’s a trope that JFK used. You know, let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. You know where you invert the words or a natural where you sort of use the same phrase or set of words, toe open a Siris of lines. So there are some of these, you know, old classical, reliable tropes of rhetoric that that can work can be effective. But if you try too hard, you know, you start to sound pompous and, yeah, Richard Nixon. In 1968 Nixon always had this Kennedy complex. It was always trying to match Kennedy, and he he’s so kind of egregiously modeled. His remarks, uh, 69 on Kennedy’s 61 address that it seems, you know, it was a little cringe worthy, and, you know I think some of our other recent inaugurals have have been like that. They just haven’t hit the mark because they’ve been straining for something grand when a different voice might have been more effective. What about [0:10:53 Speaker 1] the role of the arts at inauguration? Speaking more about the ceremonies in general? How do inauguration sort of services showcase off the arts? [0:11:03 Speaker 0] Yeah, that’s a really interesting question. Exactly. And it’s a to my knowledge, it’s a It’s a newer development, one I associate with Kennedy. There may have been efforts before, but certainly with Kenny, who had Robert Frost, you know, read his inaugural poem, I believe is the first inaugural poem you know. Since then, we’ve had programs of music often take performed at the Lincoln Memorial as well as balls and Gallas, you know later in the evening or, you know the subsequent day. The arts perform a lot of functions in our lives and in society. But one thing that they do for a political community is to try toe reach above the kind of mundane policy arguments that we’ve been sort of grappling with through the whole campaign, and they try to touch on something deeper more noble, more elevating. And so you do see, you know these Now it’s sort of become common. The star studded musical programs a swell as the poem to try to, yeah, tap into something higher, something that is shared and perhaps a little less contentious than political claims. Political arguments. What will be to a very diverse and, you know, at this moment in history but many other moments in history, a very divided country that it’s a It’s a different way of reaching out to thes divisions among us. [0:12:42 Speaker 2] It seems to me, David, that that that’s one of the opportunities in every inaugural address, right? It certainly marks a moment when the campaign is over, and in this case that this year the presidential campaigns have gone right up to the inauguration. Of course, Thedc campaign is over, and there’s a there’s a least in opportunity right toe open, a new rhetorical space for something that’s not one side versus the other, which campaigns inevitably are. I think back Thio Jefferson’s inaugural address 18 01 where, he says, we’re all federalists were all Republicans were all Americans, and you could argue that at some level, every successful inaugural address finds language of unity. Even if it doesn’t persuade everyone. At least it opens a space for a language of unity Eyes. Is that accurate? And do you think that’s still possible today for someone like President Biden to reach that space? [0:13:34 Speaker 0] Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it’s definitely accurate. And Jefferson, as you say, is sort of the key reference point. But, you know, there are other great inaugurals that work in that thing. And, you know, perhaps the greatest of all inaugural addresses. Lincoln Second, which is delivered as the Civil War is nearing its end. You know, very much strikes that note of trying to bring the country together after obviously it’s worst division. It’s most difficult period of having been Tauron asunder, to the point of, you know, a war that killed hundreds of thousands. So if Lincoln could reach out to do that, yeah, I think Biden can. And will it will it? That has been a theme of his rhetoric for the last year and a half, you know? I mean, it’s it’s one reason I think he won the presidency is that he persisted against naysayers, kind of on both sides of the aisle with this talk of unity and healing. Some people thought it was naive. Some people thought it was simplistic, but I think it’s very sincere coming from Biden and I find something very moving, actually, in this man who has, you know, had a very great and distinguished Senate career. But you know, not to cast this person never struck me as a really giant, you know, an impressive man capable but being thrust in this position where he sort of is the man for the job. He of all the Democrats who ran in 2020 he was the most an antidote to Donald Trump in a way. And so I think he is going to strike those notes. You know, he’s never been a great rhetoric mission. He’s never been that kind of a speaker. I think his political strengths lie elsewhere, But I think as we saw with his speech to the Democratic convention last August, he can sort of reach inside himself and when he gets sincere about what he really believes in, for, the country can be very affecting. And so I think you know, I don’t know what he’s going to say on Wednesday. But I think the spirit will be one that comes from a very personal place. And you use [0:15:59 Speaker 2] this word healing, which which I think is so apt for the moment when I think to so many of these inaugural addresses that that you’ve referenced the memorable ones, the ones that we as historians, have our students read Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, maybe Reagan. Even it does seem that they all are about healing. In some ways, they’re less policy addresses, but they’re all addresses that in some way they almost almost a pastoral quality, right? They there to help the listeners find a space where they can come out of their discomfort and and connect to others again. And and maybe there’s something serious and significant about that. Is that an accurate way of talking about these inaugural addresses? You think [0:16:43 Speaker 0] Yeah, I I agree with that. I mean again, I think the challenge now is the depth of the division in the country and is the word healing is a message of healing, one that people are going to be terribly receptive to, you know, I think back when Obama was inaugurated, I think this was 2009, but it might have been in 13 other parts of the country where school teachers didn’t have their kids. Students watch it, you know. And then when Trump was inaugurated the same thing in different parts of the country. And that’s not to draw on the equivalence between Obama and Trump, but simply to say there are large parts of the country that are going to tune out or that won’t be ready to give Biden the benefit of the doubt. You know, that s so I think the job is even harder to achieve that kind of healing now than well, at any time, at least in recent history. Obviously, you know, we’ve talked about the Civil War, the Depression, you know, those those were greater challenges than today’s. But today certainly seems pretty dire. But what about [0:17:59 Speaker 1] the legislative and and and and more policy effects of the inauguration? Does it Does it give a signal to McConnell and and and and non Trump Ian’s in the Senate and the house about how a Biden presidency will proceed? [0:18:14 Speaker 0] Well, it certainly could. I mean, I would be surprised if Biden gets too much into policy because, uh, Jeremy said the inaugural typically is not the place for the policy speech, and and the president does get a state of the union or an address to Congress sometime early in his presidency. Typically, when that agenda can be laid out, you know, it’s rare that the president doesn’t extend ah hand to the opposing party and its leadership. So I’m sure Biden will. I think it’s quite possible that we can imagine a Republican Party sitting there arms folded, a little bit of a scowl, a little bit skeptical about whether this is just rhetoric and whether it will be met by action. And again, Biden’s under kind of cross pressures here because on the one hand, I think he does have to make genuine overtures to the Republicans. On the other side, there are people in this party who want him to go probably in a more radical direction than he ran on and that he’s prepared to go and so he has to calibrate it very finally. So I I think he’s probably gonna, on the policy questions, play his cards somewhat close to the vest until he’s really ready to make a decision. [0:19:40 Speaker 2] And David, What about mentioning his predecessor? And I don’t actually remember. Did FDR mentioned Hoover in 1933? I mean, certainly Obama, in his 2009 inaugural address, did make some references not by name but to differences between himself and the Bush administration that preceded him. Even though there was a very friendly transition. What do you expect there? I mean, it does seem it’s hard not to comment on the difficulties of the last four years and the problems from Biden’s point of view in our leadership the last four years, [0:20:12 Speaker 0] Right? Well, I think, you know, buying already in some of the remarks he’s made during the transition period when Trump was throwing his temper tantrum. And we can call it that, you know, was very circumspect about calling out Trump by name. He’s tended to speak in generalities. You know, there were times where he did. I mean, the day of the capital riot. He directly called on Trump to get out there and say something to these supporters of his who were running roughshod over the United States Capitol. So I think I think he’ll probably avoid mentioned trump by name, but there’s no way that he can’t, you know, the kind of survey the damage done. I mean, it’s ironic that it was Donald Trump whose inaugural had the theme of American carnage. When it’s sort of you looking back over his four years. I mean, it seemed like a prediction. I has to, I think, acknowledge division, the hate and and anger that has surfaced and kind of come out of the shadows. You know, even the way in the pandemic, which could have been an event that unified us and in other moments in history might have been actually served to divide us. The people who wouldn’t wear masks, you know, versus those who to go on the other side, who give everyone a dirty look if even if they’re 20 ft away without a mass events that might have served to heal or unify us on. Lee made things worse, it turned out, so there’s no way that Biden can’t acknowledge the reality. The moment we’re in the hand he’s been dealt. That has to be his starting point, and I think he’s. He has to admit that he can’t do it alone. That If if America is to get out of this place and get back to, you know, normalcy or some kind of better future, Uh, it’s going to require, Ah, lot of people in a lot of different stations in life and jobs and positions in places in the country pulling together. It can’t just be. Here’s the president with his own checklist. It’s gotta be It’s gotta be more social, you know, society wide than, ah, White House agenda, [0:22:35 Speaker 2] Right? Right. There definitely has to be empathy with the condition people conditions people are living with. David. As you know, we always like to close on a hopeful note showing how this historical analysis that you’ve shared with us, which is so insightful, how it can contribute to hope. What do you see as hopeful signs or hopeful things to look for in the inauguration and the reaction to it in the first few days and weeks thereafter? [0:23:00 Speaker 0] Well, I think in some ways Biden is really a figure of hope, and that makes seem in Congress because I’m like Barack Obama. You know who for whom. Hope what’s a campaign slogan? Biden, you know, isn’t given to the high flying rhetoric. He isn’t given to sort of this starry eyed idealism, but I think the fact that he won, you know, he he finished fifth and I are fourth and I owe fifth in New Hampshire. I forget really was counted out the fact that Democratic voters led by African Americans but Democratic voters across the board really made it clear this was the man they wanted, Sort of, you know, the flavor of the month’s be damned says something important about him. It says that he’s someone who’s capable off maybe not quite inspiring. That might be a little straw, but capable of winning people’s trust. You know, Biden is someone we trust. We know he could do a good job with these things. He was eight years in the vice president’s office headed years, heading the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committee. He’s a man of great competence who’s seen a lot. He has now staff his administration with highly competent, highly able veterans. You know it’s gonna be very hard to criticize most of these choices he’s name and so I think the hope lies in the fact that this is someone who stands a chance of being able to fix things, and it may not be glamorous. It may not be beautiful, but it’s gonna be a solid plugging away at our problems and seeing that progress, whether it’s over 100 days or the first year. I think he’s counting on that being the source of hope, that hope will lie in the results that he and his team and all of us are able to deliver. [0:25:04 Speaker 2] It’s it’s a great point, David, and I think it actually resonates historically that that success is often about fixing problems, making things a little better than they were before and if, for example, were able to distribute the covert vaccine more effectively and get more people vaccinated and reduce the number of infections and deaths that that will make people feel better probably will make even Republicans feel better, and that that is a source of hope. It seems to me, [0:25:30 Speaker 0] yeah, exactly. I mean, I think by may not be able to deliver hope with his rhetoric, but he may be able to do it with results with delivering economic results results on the pandemic, you know, even in terms of things like the climate of enmity, of racial tension, of political division, even a sense that that’s getting slightly better has the potential to become a virtuous cycle. So I think that’s where his his promise lies. [0:26:02 Speaker 2] So Sir Zachary David’s given us a lot to think about here, really history of inaugurations and their meaning and the challenges surrounding them. What what do you think? Do you think young listeners and viewers? First of all, we’ll pay attention And do you think it will matter for them? What is said on Wednesday? [0:26:20 Speaker 0] I don’t know [0:26:21 Speaker 1] if it will matter as much what exactly is said. But I think it is going to be so powerful for young people to see the values of public service, of truth, of honesty that in many ways we have seen tourney down in recent years, put on a pedestal again and and celebrated, and I think that’s going to be a really important moment for for this new generation of leaders. [0:26:45 Speaker 2] That’s such a great note to close on and really brings brings to a point many of the many of the insights that David shared with us, and it brings us back to your poem of course, David, thank you for sharing your insights with us today about presidential inaugurations. [0:26:58 Speaker 0] Good to be with you. Good to talk about. [0:27:00 Speaker 2] And? And Zachary, thank you, As always, for your poem and for your questions and thank you most of all to our listeners. Thank you for joining us for this week of This is Democracy. This’ll Podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts Development Studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Theme music in this episode was written and recorded by Harrison Lemke, and you can find his music at Harrison Lemke dot com. [0:27:31 Speaker 0] Subscribe and stay tuned for a new episode every Thursday featuring new perspectives on democracy.