A Quieter Inauguration Isn't a Bad Thing

President Biden will be sworn in at noon today in a low-key ceremony without the usual fanfare of tens of thousands of people lining the Capitol Mall and surrounding areas and fancy inaugural balls.

Personally, we Radical Moderates think this is great. Not because we like Trump (good riddance) or dislike Biden (he's fine, we guess?) but because we've granted far too much importance to the presidency in general and the last four years are a painful reminder of just how dangerous and damaging that can be.

The president primarily exists to execute the laws, not make law, not start wars, and certainly not be the guidepost and spirit animal of an entire nation.

So here's why we're cheering for a subdued inauguration and we'll be doing other things at noon (scrubbing the toilets, maybe?):

1. First and most importantly, the president already gets outsized attention for what is ultimately the job of a glorified bureaucrat. There's a reason Article II of the Constitution is so short and ill-defined. The president primarily exists to execute the laws, not make law, not start wars, and certainly not be the guidepost and spirit animal of an entire nation. While there were admittedly different opinions on this at the time of the founding, there was a general consensus that a strong executive was uniquely dangerous to a free republic.
   
   

2. Second, the president is, in some ways, a serious threat to democracy, and not just during the Trump era. The president is one of the least representative elected officials and the one that voters have the least control over. You can probably swing an appointment with your Congressional representative or maybe catch her outside the grocery store to ask a question, but if you try that with the President you'll be body-slammed by fifteen Secret Service agents before you can say "hello."
   
   An out-sized celebration with hundreds of thousands of people and crazy inaugural balls and everything else smacks much more of monarchy than it does the swearing in of a chief executive of a free republic. The president isn't a monarch and shouldn't be cast as one.
   
   

3. Finally, this inauguration in particular should be a clear reminder of the danger the president represents. The peaceful-transition-of-power-that-almost-wasn't is a good reminder that giving the president too much power is a recipe for disaster. Maybe, just maybe, if we took the presidency a little less seriously and gave it a little less of our collective focus, we could avoid some of the agita of the last four years. It wouldn't have made Trump any less dangerous, but it might have made the office less attractive in the first place. After all, Trump was primarily attracted to the presidency not because he likes work but because he likes feeling important. The less important the presidency is, the less likely it will be to attract demagogues like Trump in the future.

Trump was primarily attracted to the presidency not because he likes work but because he likes feeling important. The less important the presidency is, the less likely it will be to attract demagogues like Trump in the future.

But as Radical Moderates, we welcome a day where, whether by accident or otherwise, we take back some of the space the presidency has taken up in our public policy, our civil society, and our republic, and instead focus our attention on each other and how to rebuild. Absolutely, go bonkers for the fourth of July. Scream from the rooftops with joy on New Years, but let's not celebrate a new president like he's some kind of savior/demigod here to change the face of the country. *We* are the country and it will change or fall on our actions. Presidents are no doubt influential, but we saw in stark reality these past four years how giving the presidency too much power, not just over policy, but over our collective consciousness, can be profoundly damaging to civil society in ways that we will be grappling with for many years to come.

Let's not celebrate a new president like he's some kind of savior/demigod here to change the face of the country. *We* are the country and it will change or fall on our actions.

So feel free to *not* watch the inauguration. Go to work, volunteer somewhere, buy the guy behind you in line a cup of coffee instead. And in a year when 400,000 Americans have died as a result of a complete failure of leadership by a president who we gave far too much power in the first place, a solemn day of remembrance seems more appropriate.