The Civic Moment

“Instead, we should follow President Biden and Gorman’s lead and frame our political debate and public discourse within an overarching language of civic virtue.”

The inaugural address delivered by President Joe Biden on January 20th has been characterized as one of the most significant such addresses in American history. Coming just 14 days after an armed mob stormed Capitol Hill leaving five people dead, President Biden was tasked with restoring fundamental democratic principles to an extraordinarily fissiparous polity.

In doing so, he drew on his vast experience of public service and his Catholic faith to identify the “common objects of love” that he felt still defined the American people: “Opportunity. Security. Liberty. Dignity. Respect. Honor. And yes, the truth.” It was time, President Biden argued, to “end the uncivil war” by demonstrating a “little tolerance and humility,” as well as a willingness to “stand in the shoes of others.” This empathy is important, he claimed, because “there is no accounting for what fate will deal you.”

For The Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein, President Biden’s address placed a reassertion of civic virtues at its very center. The embrace of a “rhetoric of civic virtue” served as an “antidote to a national conversation poisoned by presidential tweet storms, cable news calumny, and social media vitriol.” President Biden’s speech was, therefore, a recognition that the civic virtues most closely associated with flourishing liberal democracies—tolerance, respect, prudence, etc.—had been placed in existential peril during the administration of President Donald Trump.