When historians study the inaugural addresses delivered by presidents either taking office or continuing in office, they look for memorable themes and phrases.
Perhaps the most memorable — and the most tragic — was on March 4, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln spoke just before the end of the Civil War about putting things back together.
“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”
The tragedy was of course for what might have been. Lincoln wanted to welcome the seceding states back as the prodigal son in the Bible was welcomed back by his father, but he was assassinated just six weeks later and those left in charge were in no mood to forgive anyone.
Nearly 100 years later, on January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Then of course there was Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 4, 1933, telling Americans in the depths of the Great Depression that everything was going to be all right.
It was the perfect phrase for a desperate time.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
To my mind at least, those may have been the three most memorable things to come from inaugural addresses.
If and when historians bother taking a serious look at Donald Trump’s two inaugurals, the thing that will jump out at them from the first is his talk of “American carnage.”
That was bizarre enough that one of the spectators, former President George W. Bush, described the speech by saying, “That was some weird shit.”
It would be fascinating to know what old Dubya thought about this phrase from Trump’s second inaugural today.
“It will henceforth be the policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.”
It reminds me of a few years ago, when Republicans wanted to put into the Constitution that marriage was between a man and a woman.
Hey, historians would say, look at this. These people got so stupid they had to write this down.
Aren’t we special.