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Throughout the election campaign, Joe Biden promised that, shortly after being elected president, he would roll back some of Donald Trump’s most controversial decisions, from pulling back from the Paris Agreement on climate change, to barring Muslims from entering the United States. And he’s been true to his word. Biden is also expected to tighten the screw on relations with Russia, thaw relations with Cuba and even get the USA back into the nuclear agreement with Iran, although the latter will take some effort to pull off. To a great extent, these are initiatives and policies of the Obama administration which Donald Trump cancelled or reversed during the four years of his term in office. There was much talk of new beginnings surrounding Biden’s swearing-in ceremony, but most of Biden’s early days in office will likely be about trying to get the United States back to the point where it was four years ago, when Donald Trump took office. It’s like trying to close a chapter. Yet this chapter in the history of the United States was more than just a number of bad calls that need correcting. It ushered in a new way of looking at the world and interpreting reality, and this cannot be undone with a few presidential decrees or legislative initiatives. The key, for the time being, is to apparently fall back on the very symbols underlying America today, from the people, events and achievements that marked its history, to the institutions, monuments and writings that have set it on a path to glory.
Alternative reality in the Trump era
Donald Trump started his term in office under the aegis of “alternative facts”, the very phrase used by Trump’s counselor, Kellyanne Conway, two days after the swearing-in ceremony. Conway defended Trump’s new media chief, Sean Spicer, who had called the crowds gathered at Trump’s investiture ceremony the largest audience to witness an inauguration, and had criticized the media for writing that the turnout for Obama’s 2009 inauguration was significantly larger. For Spicer and Conway, it mattered little that the press exposed these falsehoods easily: according to Trump’s lay of the land, facts are pretty much irrelevant when the president is demanding a different version of reality. Trump’s staff presented countless “alternative facts” over the years. But the one who always set the tone was the president himself: Washington Post has identified 30,558 false or misleading claims Donald Trump made during his term in office, starting January 19, 2021. Even Wikipedia has a page dedicate to Trump’s false claims, starting with certain statements made years before becoming president of the United States. His first lie is ludicrous – Trump said it hadn’t rained during his investiture ceremony, although the event had been broadcast live and the whole world watched as the rain was coming down. His last lie, according to which he won the presidential election, was repeated time and again, until his followers decided they cannot let such injustice stand, and stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to block the ratification of Biden’s victory in the election. These extremists are but a small part of a much bulkier mass: over 74 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, because they believed in his alternative reality, because they didn’t care what the president was saying as long as he had their interests at heart, or simply because they thought Trump was the lesser evil. And these 74 million Americans turned up to polling stations when Donald Trump called on them. It is truly remarkable, considering the economy suffered immensely under the fallout of the pandemic, which Trump very poorly managed. It’s hard to say what the outcome would have been if the election had been held prior to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.
The parade of symbols in the fortress-city
The imaginary crowds attending Donald Trump’s investiture were offset by symbols. Kamala Harris, the first woman to become vice-president of the United States, took the oath before the Hispanic judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The inaugural pledge of allegiance was recited by Andrea Hall, the first Black woman to serve as captain of a fire brigade in Georgia, a Republican stronghold in the south, which now voted for Biden. The ceremony evoked the most important presidents in the country’s history, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In his speech, Joe Biden spoke of the Civil war and the suffragettes’ movement, of Martin Luther King and the heroes buried at Arlington Cemetery. He spoke of “our Republic” and referred to the Capitol as a temple of the American democracy and people. “The will of the people has been heard and the will of the people has been heeded […] and democracy has prevailed”, President Biden said. The people, however, were at home, watching the ceremony on TV: replacing them were some 200 thousand flags on National Mall. The new administration didn’t want people rallying in the streets in the hundreds of thousands, as Biden condemned Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic and promised the moment he takes office he would adopt a series of measures his predecessor avoided. Of course, security risks were also a concern – the inauguration followed exactly two weeks after the assault on the Capitol, during which time the threat of new violence remained a real possibility, in addition to warnings being issued of possible armed protests.
And since it wouldn’t have been a genuine American event without a dash of showbiz, Lady Gaga delivered a stirring performance of “The Star Spangled Banner”, adding further depth to the parade of symbols. Escorted by a US marine, Lady Gaga appeared sporting a navy jacket displaying a large brooch of a dove, a symbol of kitsch rather than peace. After Kamala Harris took the oath, another US marine escorted Jennifer Lopez to the stage, where she performed “This Land is Your Land”, Woody Guthrie’s alternative anthem on social inequity. Yet the contrast was rather blatant between Guthrie, who wrote the song after years on the road in a country haunted by thousands of dirtpoor people looking to scrape a living, and the dazzling diva and her heavy diamond earrings and pearl bracelets, performing the song from the very heart of the establishment.
Guarding the said establishment was a 25,000-strong army, made up of National Guard members, which is more than the number of US military deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria combined. And they were there just to provide support to civilian security forces, also present in large numbers. On inauguration day, Washington resembled a true fortress. And this extraordinary show of force may be, or may become, a symbol – to some, a symbol of strength of a Republic reborn, while to others a symbol of the regime that cast out the man who defied the system and now cowers behind armed forces.
