On the eve of his inauguration, and hours after the U.S. reached the grim milestone of more than 400,000 COVID-19 deaths, President-elect Joe Biden gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on Tuesday.
As the sun set under DC and gospel singer Yolanda Adams performed Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” 400 lanterns were lit on television nationwide in an instant to remember that the Americans lost because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the nearby Washington National Cathedral and in churches across the country, bells are ringing in memory of the dead.
“To heal, we must remember. And it’s sometimes hard to remember, but that’s how we heal. It is important to do this as a nation. That is why we are here today, ”said Biden. “Between sunset and dusk let us shine the lights in the dark next to this sacred pool of reflection and let everyone remember what we have lost.”
Tuesday’s ceremony was the first time since the pandemic began that the U.S. government’s executive – although the incoming executive – stopped for a national moment of sadness. This not only signaled the arrival of a new government, but a new opportunity for the country to collectively take into account the toll the virus has taken in every corner of the country.
“We have been mourning ourselves for many months,” said Kamala Harris, vice president. “Tonight we mourn – and we begin to heal – together.”
But the healing is complicated for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost loved ones. While the memorial was a first step toward a national recognition of how much was lost Tuesday night, and Biden’s empathy could be a comfort, for some of the struggling people there are deep questions about how to recover and what responsibility the federal government should have.
Chioma Oruh, 40, whose father died of COVID-19 in a nursing home in May, said she appreciated the idea of the memorial, but it did not do much for the unresolved anger and pain she had over death. of her father.
“You want to be able to feel OK and be in fellowship with each other, celebrate and grieve and work together,” Oruh said. ‘At the same time, it happens as soon as a government creates mechanisms by which accountability can take place. I do not think we came to that point where that liability takes place. ”
Biden begins his tenure on Wednesday with several national crises to contend with. He has been clear for months that tackling the pandemic is one of his top priorities, and the decision to hold a memorial service, even briefly, to acknowledge those who have died underscores the task he faces in trying to change the orbit of COVID-19 in the USA. His own chief of staff estimates that another 100,000 Americans will die from the virus next month.
Biden convened a COVID-19 task force shortly after winning the election to begin talks with governors, medical experts and others. Last week, he announced a $ 1.9 billion pandemic relief plan. His proposal is focused on resources for testing, vaccines and economic recovery. But his plan does not include the measures that Oruh specifically wants to help families who have lost a loved one due to negligence, or to investigate the deaths that have already occurred.
A ceremony like Wednesday may not really help her heal, Oruh said, unless there is compensation for those who have lost loved ones for the poor handling of the pandemic by authorities and private companies such as some nursing homes. “I can not sue the nursing home because he exposed my father to COVID,” she said.
‘In other spaces you would have a commission for truth and reconciliation, a kind of trial. “People are talking about compensation,” Oruh said. “These things do not fall outside the democratic process, that’s what makes democracy the best system … COVID is no exception to the rule.”
But the importance of the future president acknowledging the grief that gripped so many Americans through the pandemic is not lost on Micki McElya, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and author of The politics of mourning: death and honor in Arlington National Cemetery.
“So many people have – really since earlier days of the pandemic – looked at this tradition of mourning, the emotional register and leadership instituted by the president, or could be or must instituted by the president, ”McElya said. But Americans, according to Donald Trump, did not find it.
Grief was a guideline of Biden’s life and career. He was first sworn in as a senator in January 1973, a few weeks after his wife Neilia and daughter Naomi died in a car accident. He was 30 years old. His son Beau, who survived the crash as a child, had a growing career in Democratic politics. He died in 2015 at 46 of brain cancer.
‘I think with Biden the deep associations with his own personal tragedy and losses and the fact that they have always been deeply public have been publicly decreed. “I think it gives him an atmosphere of authenticity and sincerity in a role that people have looked at a lot in the past and looked for during the pandemic,” McElya said.
About Beau earlier Tuesday during his farewell to his home state of Delaware, where he has been since the pandemic began, Biden was clearly emotional. “I have only one regret: that he is not here. “Because we have to introduce him as president,” he said.
For decades, Biden has forged loyalty with people – from voters during campaign events to political friends and influential allies – through his ability to empathize and comfort, especially in times of sadness. While traveling nationwide on the route before the pandemic, he regularly met people who had lost someone and comforted them. Others would come to his events after meeting him decades ago during a period of sadness in their lives and remembering their kindness.
His acknowledgment of the losses the Americans have endured over the past year is a major interruption to his predecessor’s approach to the pandemic. Out of political consequences at every step, Trump has kept the severity of the crisis to a minimum and denied the US death toll, even if it surpasses that of every other country in the world.
Trump in his pre-recorded farewell speech on Tuesday did not specifically address the extent of the destruction that COVID-19 has brought under the U.S. government. Instead, he proposes the response of his administration on vaccines.
He did acknowledge the toll at some point in his speech. “We grieve over every lost life,” he said, “and we promise to erase their memory once and for all.”
But the outgoing leader never gave in to the magnitude of the loss – how many Americans died in the last year of his presidency.
McElya, says McElya, if the US really wants to start curing the diseases of the pandemic, there must still be many moments like Biden’s ceremony on Tuesday night. And further even more accountability.
” If something approaching unity is to be achieved, it needs a clear, sober eye to confront the damage and all we have lost, ” McElya said. “What also symbolizes this event and what it can achieve is not only to honor them, but also to reckon why they are gone.”