No Mercy No Malice

The Disorienting Shock of Business as Usual

The S&P 500 registered the best Inauguration Day return since Reagan’s second term

The most striking thing about this abnormal inauguration? The normalcy.

The normalcy of a president speaking calmly. Speaking of unity and of a nation coming together. A president who is credible when he says it.

The normalcy of a previous, if not the prior, Republican president, saying to the incoming Democrat, “Mr. President, I’m pulling for your success. Your success is our country’s success and God bless you.”

The incoming president taking his oath to protect the Constitution on a Bible that has been in his family since 1893. Not using a borrowed book for a photo opportunity amidst clouds of tear gas.

46 knows loss and knows grief, and will draw on those experiences to preside over a nation that is losing 4,000 souls a day to a pandemic. It’s the exact right time for Biden to be president, with his ability to console, to grieve, and to unify.

Biden did just this even before becoming president: At the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, he honored the 400,000 Americans who have already died during the pandemic.