Inauguration Archives - Public Seminar

Politics

Biden’s Made-for-TV Inauguration

The spectacle of unity required a camera angle that made the razor wire and the thousands of heavily-armed National Guard members invisible

January 28, 2021 • by Stephanie Engel

Ultimately, though, what troubled me most profoundly was what we didn’t see. ...

Past Present

The Biden-Harris Inauguration

Past Present Podcast, Episode 263

January 19, 2021 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: On January 20, President-Elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated to the office of the President. Niki referred to the book Before the Oath. Neil and Natalia referred to Rebecca Onion’s Slate piece on transitions. In our regular closing feature, What’s Making ...

Feature

Trump’s Gothic Populism

Comparing Trump’s Inauguration Speech to Obama’s

February 15, 2017 • by Michael Ure

Unsurprisingly, Trump hit all the main notes of contemporary radical populism: the Manichean, moralistic distinction between the pure people and the corrupt elite; the anti-pluralist idealization of a common, unified people; and the commitment to a populist leader who directly incarnates the general will: Trump expresses himself as the pure, ...

Feature

Protesting the Inaugural

Reactions from Washington, D.C. on January 20th

February 8, 2017 • by Jo Freeman

Protesting the inauguration of a President has become a tradition. While those who shouted “not my President” and other things as Donald Trump ascended to the highest office in the land clearly did not like him, most of them would have demonstrated had it been Hillary Clinton who took the ...