“MOVING AGAIN AS ONE EVEN, UNINTERRUPTED STREAM” Proposed Inaugural Address for President-Elect Joseph R. Biden
By: David Maloof
Tags: President Elect Biden, Inauguration, Democratic Party, Politics, Joe Biden

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(Obtain Permission/Play Skylar Grey Song “Coming Home”)

Mr. Chief Justice, Associate Justices, Presidents , Distinguished Members of Congress, and my fellow Americans:

In accordance with the Ninth Commandment, I can not bear false witness. And I would be bearing false witness if I told you anything other than that America today faces four historic crises:

First, the Covid-19 Pandemic, the greatest killer of Americans since the Civil War;

Second, the resulting worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with the loss of tens of millions of American jobs, resulting in a shrinking middle class;

Third, emboldened white supremacy and the need for a reckoning on race and social justice;

Finally, the long-term crisis of healing the planet and reversing climate change.

United, we can come together and solve these crises. Divided, they remain a pestering and festering wound.

In the book “A Century of Wayne County, Kentucky,” the author recounts how Anthony McBeath proudly fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy. And how his brother, William McBeath, fought proudly in the Civil War — for the Union. Until the war ended. And they both came home. To their family farm. The same family farm. And as fate would have it, they arrived there on the same evening. One still in his fine uniform; one clothed only in rags. Their sister — she just cried — a spontaneous release, grateful that they were both still whole. The two men quietly placed the perhaps still warm barrels of their rifles side-by-side, in the same cold closet. And they never lifted them in anger again. These two brave, loyal, and passionate soldiers did more than put kindle on the fire in their home together, they rekindled their love. As the author wrote: “There was no bitterness…and life went on again in an even, uninterrupted stream.” And so it was in 1865 in America.

In President Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, he had to do more than end a Civil War; he had to heal the very soul of America. He had to lament the sheer wickedness of a war where brother bloodied brother:

“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

Just as with the Civil War, in the election past, the prayers of neither Democrats nor Republicans were answered fully. America was one again bitterly divided, sometimes brother against brother, sometimes neighbor against neighbor, parent against child, and even husband against wife. Sometimes, such couples could barely express to each other their love of country. But, like the McBeath brothers, today we must, and we will, renew our lives, and our love, in the same home. As one even, uninterrupted stream.

Renewal. On November 3rd past, a record — over 80 million people — voted for a renewed country. For a new Presidency that brought everyone together, for a Presidency that rekindled the love, on our streets and in our homes. Thus, our mandate today, as was Lincoln’s in 1865, is to bind up the nation’s wounds, to re-unite brother to brother, and in some cases husband to wife. To make sure our love runs deeper in our veins than our disagreements. Our job, your job, like the McBeath brothers, when we walk down these steps — is to step up to remake, renew and rebuild the soul of America.

What is the singular soul of America? It is more than its creed, as Americans come from many creeds. As Jon Meacham has written:

“The dominant feature of that soul — the air we breathe, or, to shift the metaphor, the controlling vision — is a belief in the proposition, as Jefferson put in the Declaration, that all men are created equal. It is therefore incumbent on us, from generation to generation, to create a sphere in which we can live, live freely, and pursue happiness to the best of our abilities. We cannot guarantee equal outcomes, but we must do all we can to ensure equal opportunity.”



So whether your heart beats faster to the slogan “Black Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter,” my message today is: you are the soul of America.

Whether you want to “Build America Back Better” or “Make America Great Again,” you are the soul of America.

And whether you wish to “Buy American, Hire American” or “A Presidency for All Americans,” you are the soul of America.

The Civil War was not the only time we have been divided. The passing of the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Know-Nothing Movement, the internment of Japanese Americans, the McCarthy era, the battle to end segregation, have all been grim eras of internal strife in this vast and complex nation. But each time, afterward, we renewed our soul — and built America back better.



Now some have accused us of wanting to create a socialist revolution. But I say no, we want not a revolution, but a renewal. Not socialism, but a rebuilding of compassionate capitalism. Whether we called it the New Deal, the New Frontier or the Great Society. A renewal, and a rebuilding, of outdated economic, criminal justice, and social systems, a rebuilding of too many broken bridges, highways and a rebuilding of bridges between too many broken hearts. And then we can all come together and heal. And thus:

 Together, we can and we will renew, and rebuild back better, our broken health care systems, heal our bodies, and end once and for all this terrible pandemic. To start that process today, I am calling upon every American who truly loves America to wear a mask in public for the next 100 days, so that we can break the back of this pandemic.

 Together, we can and we will end this terrible recession, renew, and rebuild back better, our industrial base, and oversee the re-industrialization and the re-employment of America, as we finally initiate a $15 per hour minimum wage and fight for economic justice. And we will make re-employment the core of our economic policy, as we recognize that a job is more than a paycheck, a job is a source of security and dignity. Again, to those who accuse us of promoting socialism, let me be clear: we reject socialism. Rather, we endorse compassionate capitalism, as what America was, and is, and has always been, when it is at its best.

 Together, we can and we will renew, and rebuild back better, our broken criminal justice systems, the weight of which has fallen far too heavily on our black and brown sisters and brothers, for far too long, and finally bring an end to white supremacy as an ideology, wheezing and grasping for air on its historical and outdated deathbed.

 Together, we can and we will renew, and rebuild back better, our environmental policies and heal the planet. This past year, wild fires in America set ablaze an area the size of Maryland. Prosperity will no longer be purchased by depredation of the purity of our planet, through perfidy and poison.

 While protecting legitimate gun rights, together, we can and we will renew, and rebuild back better, our outdated gun control policies, and stop the epidemic in America of the planet’s worst gun violence.

 Together, we can and we will renew, and rebuild back better, our outdated campaign financing laws, and heal our political systems.

 Together, we can and we will renew, and rebuild back better, our broken infrastructure, our bridges and our highways.

 Together, we can and we will renew, and rebuild back better, our broken immigration system, and once again welcome with open arms and open hearts those who live here, and those who love here.

 Together, we can and we will renew, and rebuild back better, the culture of how we treat women so that the next generation will be able to say not “Me Too” but “Not Me,” and we will finally add to our Constitution the long overdue Equal Rights Amendment, and thereby honor the memory of both our founding fathers, and our founding mothers.

 Together, we can, and we will, renew, and rebuild back better, the fight for human rights, and that means we will be coming home to our rightful place as a leader in the United Nations.

 In his First Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln asked if America could exist, half slave and half free. Today the question is even broader: how well can the world exist, part democratic and part autocratic? We will, and we must, ensure that liberty prevails over authoritarianism. “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible,” the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in 1944, “but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Yes, there are countries who have self-appointed leaders for life, strong economies and strong militaries. But no country on earth has a soul as strong as America’s. And no alliances on earth come close to matching the strength of our Grand Democratic Alliances with the leading nations of NATO, of Asia and Australasia. These Grand Democratic Alliances, tried and true through toil, trials and tears, remain triumphant. These Grand Democratic Alliances include 12 of the top 15 foremost countries by GDP in the world, representing nearly 60% of the world’s GDP. Like America itself, these Grand Democratic Alliances unite together diverse races, religions, and regions. Together, America’s Grand Democratic Alliances remain unmatched in their power to insure the collective future of the world.



After the speeches and the ceremonies end today, the work begins. We will step down from this scaffolding to a renewed America. As the African-American theologist and civil rights leader Howard Thurman tells us: the work of faith renewal does not end with the Holidays in December. No, to the contrary, it goes on all year:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

when the star in the sky is gone,

when the kings and princes are home,

when the shepherds are back with their flocks,

the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal the broken,

to feed the hungry,

to release the prisoner,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among the people,

to make music in the heart.

In the United States of America, ladies and gentleman, there has never been anything we’ve tried we’ve not been able to do, when we were united. United as a country, and united in our Grand Democratic Alliances.

My late son Beau had a favorite phrase, to ground my thinking. He used to say: “Home base, home base.” And so today I say to you America, like the McBeath brothers, it is time to return to home base. To paraphrase the Skylar Grey song: “So you can doubt and you can hate, but I know no matter what it takes, America is coming home, we’re coming home, tell the world we’re coming home. Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday.” Coming home to place our warm rifles side-by-side in the same cold closet. Coming home to renew and rebuild back better the one beating heart and the one blessed soul of this one United States of America.

Together, we will renew and rebuild the soul of America, and restore our Grand Democratic Alliances and preserve peace in the world. And move again as one even, uninterrupted stream. May God bless America and may God protect our troops. Thank you.

(Obtain Permission/Play Skylar Grey Song “Coming Home”)

Mr. Maloof can be reached via email at dmaloof@maloofandbrowne.com or via telephone at (914) 548–8620.