Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, and promised to preserve a spirit of national unity to lead the country through one of the most dangerous chapters in American history.
Millions of Americans watched from home as Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office to Biden on the steps outside the Western Front of the American Capitol, just two weeks after they watched in horror as a crowd of supporters loyal to his predecessor stormed the building. in a violent final stance to overthrow the results of the presidential election.
Donald Trump, who never formally conceded his defeat, left the White House on Wednesday morning and did not attend, a final show of respect for the traditions and norms that have long shaped the presidency. Outgoing Vice President Mike Pence was there, along with the Clintons, the Bushes and the Obamas.
Fear and anxiety surrounded the run-up to Biden’s inauguration. The threat of more violence led to the deployment of nearly 25,000 national guard troops, who turned the gleaming city on a hill into a military fortress.
The pandemic has already greatly reformed the inaugural events and ceremony, usually attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators to the National Mall. Much of the area is closed. Instead, flags of the states and territories represented those urged by the first committee to stay away, fearing that large crowds would spread the coronavirus, which has now killed more than 400,000 Americans.
Biden swore to defend the constitution and the country “against all foreign and domestic enemies”. At 78, he is the oldest president to ever take the oath of office.
A portion of Biden’s legacy is assuredly even before he placed his hand on top of a large 19th-century Bible, a family heirloom with a Celtic cross with his wife, Jill Biden. Biden, the vice president of the country’s first black president, elected Kamala Harris as the first female, first black and first Asian American vice president of America.
The inauguration brings to an end one of the most volatile transitions in modern memory, an interregnum that tested the fragility of America’s commitment to an orderly and peaceful transition of power. For weeks after his defeat, Trump whipped up loyalists with unsubstantiated allegations of a stolen election.
His claims were rejected by dozens of courts, security experts, Republican election officials and his then attorney general. But Trump refused to accept his fate, a decision that culminated two weeks ago in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, where rioters tried to stop Congress from confirming Biden’s victory.
Hours after he was sworn in, Biden was expected to return to the White House to undo what his chief of staff described as “the greatest damage” to the legacy of his predecessor. With a sense of urgency to reflect the scope of the tasks before him, Biden will sign 15 executive orders, as well as a flurry of memoranda and ordinances from the Oval Office, according to its leading policy advisers.
He will immediately rejoin the Paris Climate Accords, end efforts to leave the World Health Organization, lift a travel ban on several predominantly Muslim countries, revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and extend a break for the payment of student loans and the federal moratorium evictions and denials.
He will also send a comprehensive immigration bill to Congress and impose a national mandate requiring the mask in federal buildings and travel through the country.
Collectively, the Biden government hopes to make a sharp break with the reality drama that the White House has conquered over the past four years by showing a commitment to the government.
Nearly half a century after being sworn in as one of the country’s youngest senators, he became the oldest president to take the oath of office.
A Washington veteran was first elected to the Senate in 1972, where he served until becoming Vice President in 2009 under Barack Obama. Biden enters the White House with one of the deepest resumes in American political history, an experience he will rely on as a country plagued by disease, economic unrest and political upheaval.
Loss and recovery marked his long career in public service. His first wife and daughter died in a car accident days after his Senate election. In 2015, he buried his eldest son, Beau, who died of brain cancer. In a tearful farewell to his homeland, Delaware, on the eve of his inauguration, Biden said, “I have only one regret: he is not here.”
Biden’s rise to the presidency, the realization of a life dream, was paved with false beginnings and bad timing. A plagiarism scandal plagued his first run. Biden was overshadowed by the historic candidacy of his Democratic opponents in 2008, and bowed before the Iowa caucuses. Then, in 2015, while still mourning the loss of his son, Biden chose not to run.
But Trump’s presidency torments him. Trump’s failure to condemn white violence in Charlottesville was Biden’s motivation to launch a third presidential bid. Biden presented himself as a rebuke to Trump – an empathetic figure shaped by personal tragedy who believed he had something to offer the country in a moment of fierce national tragedy.
A historic number of Americans, exhausted by the chaos and divisions of the past four years, elected Biden in November.
At the end of the ceremony, the new president will review military troops, a tradition intended to symbolize the peaceful transfer of power. The new president, vice president and their families will hold the temporary parade along Pennsylvania Avenue, and will be escorted by representatives of each branch of the military to the White House for one city block.
Biden’s day began when he left the Blair House for a Catholic Mass in St Matthew the Apostle’s Cathedral, where he was joined by the second couple and congressional leaders in a tone of duality and ritual. Biden, a man of deep faith, will be only the second Catholic president, after John Kennedy.