Defense & Intelligence Policy, Business and Technology

What Kind of New Beginning?

Foreign Policy: There will be a parade on Inauguration Day. There will be speeches. There will be pomp and fancy-dress balls. On the surface, it will look like a celebration, just like past examples of the ritual we repeat every four years with the swearing-in of our presidents.

The parade will snake down the same stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, as it always does. Flags will still flutter. Long black limousines will be guarded by the same breed of brave men and women in and out of uniform.

But do not view Inauguration Day 2017 as just the latest chapter of the stately pageant of democracy. Because it is a darker sort of ceremony. The procession will be more like a cortege — and the vast majority of Americans watching it will not be celebrating but mourning for lost values and shattered standards. The question for all of us is whether we can make it into something more than that.

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