Television Commentary: In America’s capital, a day of terrifying images from a failed state - our ownĪmericans are used to saying, ‘It can’t happen here.’ On Wednesday, it did - and the democracy we crow about exporting abroad was shaken to its foundations. His message was bolstered by a ceremony that wove together the traditional and the new: Lady Gaga sang the national anthem in a billowing red skirt and blonde Greta braids Jennifer Lopez, dressed in the crisp, clean white of a fresh start, belted out a medley of “This Land Is Your Land” and “America the Beautiful,” replete with a message in Spanish and the urge to “Get loud.” Every disagreement doesn’t need to be a total war.” “Let’s start afresh, all of us,” Biden implored during his inaugural address, in which he also pledged to defeat “political extremism, white supremacy domestic terrorism.” “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Such moments added to the poignant nature of the ceremony, which represented both historical change and a potential return to normality, striking a deft balance between turning the page, dealing with today’s challenges and reckoning with our past. Goodman, who is Black, escorted Harris to her seat the first Latina Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, administered Harris the oath of office. The gravity of the moment was underscored further by the presence of Eugene Goodman, the Capitol Police officer who almost surely saved the lives of elected officials - and risked his own - by leading rioters, among them white supremacists, away from the Senate chamber during the Jan. Like Chisholm when she became the first Black woman elected to Congress in 1968 and later launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Harris made history Wednesday when she was sworn in as the first woman, first Black American and first person of South Asian descent to become vice president. In Harris’ case, it was also a tribute to Shirley Chisholm, the first Black presidential candidate from one of the two major parties. “We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.”Īnd as a trio of former presidents from both parties stood, in unity, to witness the transfer of power, the view was dappled with bipartisan purple - the color chosen by Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former First Ladies Laura Bush and Michelle Obama, whose long coat and gold belt gave her the appearance of a superhero. “Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished,” said Los Angeles native Amanda Gorman, 22, whose inaugural poem “The Hill We Climb” embodied the changing of the guard, and the reflective mood, with its words about resilience and opportunity. Now, as ratings slide, it can’t escape itįox News abandoned “fair and balanced” before Donald Trump assumed office, but its assault on truth has only ramped up since. Television Commentary: Fox News helped create the Big Lie.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |