The Changing of the Guard
John Biebelhausen
AI Marketing | Go-to-Market Strategies | Content Creator | Cross-Channel Marketing | @NVIDIA
First, Presidential Inaugurations are the most significant public rituals of American representative government. Unlike the coronation of a monarch or any ritual associated with the rise to power of a dictator or autocrat, the inauguration of the American President is a cyclical, regularly scheduled event held every four years. The regularity of Presidential Inaugurations lends a sense of reassuring stability, continuity, and permanence to a political system that permits turnover in officeholders and change in policy agendas. Moreover, it is a peaceful change in government, unlike the turmoil and violence that so often has accompanied a change in head of state elsewhere.
Second, why is the Chief Executive’s oath of office customarily administered at the Capitol, the seat of the legislative branch of government? In part, it’s a reflection of how the President is elected. The Electoral College ballots are counted by Congress, which then certifies the election of the President and Vice President and notifies the winners. Moreover, the Capitol provides an appropriate political theater for the symbolism of the inaugural ritual. The oath is administered, normally when weather permits, outside, in the presence of the public—the electorate who chose the President. The President-elect and Vice-President-elect are surrounded by Members of Congress, past and present, Justices of the Supreme Court, members of the diplomatic corps, and other dignitaries as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court administers the oath of office. In this way, all three branches of the federal government and the public they serve are symbolically linked in this ritual of renewal and reaffirmation.