It's an Inauguration, Alice

Some facts:

• The definition of inaugurate (a transitive verb):   to induct into an office with suitable ceremonies; to dedicate ceremoniously : observe formally the beginning of <inaugurate a new school>; to bring about the beginning of.  Interestingly the source of the word is from the Latin inaugu ratus, past participle of inaugurare, which literally means to practice augury Merriam-Webster– which means to engage in divination (discerning the future) from auspices or omens. Merriam-Webster  Thus might we say that an inauguration is a ceremonial act of wish fulfillment: by giving a president a big kick-off to his term in office, there is an expression of hope or even belief that all will be well and good  both with the president and the nation he governs.  Maybe.  Or maybe we’ve just forgotten that we’re practicing a ritual that would pretend to know the future.*

• The word inaugurate does not appear in the Constitution of the United States, nor in any of its amendments. Wikipedia  Indeed, searching the internet, I could find nothing on who decided to call the swearing in ceremony an inauguration in the first place.  If used in its most common sense, ‘inauguration’ can be used interchangeably with ‘swearing in’, as it is the actual swearing in which does the deed.  But inauguration means and has long meant here in these United States, all the festivities and speeches surrounding the actual swearing in.  So it is that yesterday Mr. Obama became president for the second time but it is today that the event of yesterday (the swearing in) will be re-enacted with all due pomp and ceremony, speeches and dancing.  Marshall McLuhan was right: The medium is the message.

• Distinguishing the swearing in from the inauguration (as the events surrounding the swearing in), Gerald Ford did not have an inauguration.  Wikipedia  Although it is referred to as an ‘inauguration’, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson was simply administered the oath of office on Air Force One. Wikipedia   Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, also had a swearing in without any inaugural ceremonies. Wikiepedia

• The phrase God bless America, used and overused in politics, as in the socially obligatory ending of speeches by presidents and would-be presidents with the phrase, is perhaps nowhere more common than on inauguration day, when even news casters get in on it, using the phrase as a form of greeting.  (Witness this morning’s Morning Joe when Joe Scarborough and Michael Steel, former RNC chair, greeted each other with an exchange of God bless Americas.

• Like any ceremony, the inauguration is probably fraught with talismans whose meanings have been lost or worse, represent something the current swearer-in would have no interest in.  My own favorite has to be Ronald Reagan’s change of the orientation of the location of the swearing in.  He moved it from the east to the west side of the capitol building so that he could be facing his home state of California. Wikipedia  Presumably no president since had any interest in facing California; yet all have kept Reagan’s decision, making it a tradition.  Maybe each of them has preferred the venue for their own reasons.  Or maybe they’ve simply forgotten what the original point was.

• “. . . so help me God” is not part of the oath prescribed in the Constitution.  Washington is said to have added the phrase himself, with every president since following suit, with the exception of Teddy Roosevelt. Inaugural Fun Facts So says one source.  Yet another reports that many of the early presidents simply answered the oath, put to them in the form of a question (as in, “Do you solemnly swear to . . .”) with the answer, “I do.”  This source reports that TR did not use a Bible to swear upon (also not required by the Constitution), apparently without any outcry and that is it uncertain which Presidents used the phrase and which did not, including Washington himself.  Wikipedia

Gleanings

What is to be learned, gained, gleaned, from these ceremonial events?  Do they make us more unified as a nation?  I doubt it.  Do they make us feel good, like a great national party celebrating us?  Perhaps.

George H. W. Bush is said to have remarked on his inauguration that we were all standing on the “front porch of democracy”.  And maybe it’s as simple as that: inaugurations serve as a public and highly visible transfer of power.  Sure the pomp and ceremony give the moment its cachet, but the simple leaving of one leader and ascendency of the next – all without the benefit of guns and henchmen, is the real ‘point’ of it all.  In this, it’s parallel in monarchies is the declamation, The king is dead, long live the king – the reassurance that orderliness prevails.

A new president is installed.  The Republic is safe and all is well.

Except in this case, it is not a new president, but one serving his second term, which at least suggests that today is superfluous.  What need even of an oath already taken four years ago?

So yes, I fear, it’s all about the politics, the moment to celebrate and do the end-zone victory dance and slam the ball into the ground.

Whatever the purpose, whatever is to be gained, it’s another day on planet earth and as days on the planet go, it’s not so bad.


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*Actually, the augury reference is to the doing of the installation into office and the choice of day, it being believed in days of old that some days are better or more auspicious for the beginning of big things. Dictionary   This, in our time, however, must be seen as another of those things whose reason or purpose has been forgotten in the fog of history: for who in their right mind seeking an auspicious day would select any day in January in the eastern United States?