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By Dimitris Xygalatas, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut As one president’s term ends and another begins, there is a ceremony. Its importance is one of symbolism rather than substance. The Constitution is clear: On January 20, there will be a transfer of power. There is no mention of an inauguration. By definition, ritual acts have no direct effect on the world. A ceremonial event is one that symbolically affirms something that happens by other, more direct means. In this case, the election – not the inauguration – makes the president, although an oath is...

Joe Biden plans to lead a unique nationwide memorial service on the eve of his inauguration to honor the grim toll of nearly 400,000 American lives lost to the coronavirus. The presidential inauguration committee (PIC) announced recently that it would host a lighting ceremony around the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool along the National Mall in Washington, a day ahead of Biden’s swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Capitol. Cities and towns across the country are invited to join the ceremony by illuminating buildings and ringing church bells at the same moment, shortly after east coast sunset on 19 January, the...

On January 6, while Congress was certifying the 2020 election results, hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC. They smashed windows, broke through doors, breached the building, and ran through it, snapping photos of themselves carting off documents and artifacts. No attacking force has rampaged through the Capitol since 1814, when British soldiers torched it during the War of 1812. Tasked with protecting lawmakers and the building, the Capitol Police’s response was wildly disorganized. Their actions ranged from shooting a woman dead to taking a selfie with a rioter. Officers were pepper-sprayed and hit with...

By Kathy Roberts Forde, Associate Professor, Journalism Department, University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Kristin Gustafson, Associate Teaching Professor in Media and Communication, University of Washington, Bothell While the attempted coup by Trump fanatics on January 6 was unsuccessful in its goal to topple the government and remove American democracy, the 1898 coup in Wilmington, North Carolina highlights the tragic consequences that could have befallen our nation. These two events, separated by 122 years, share critical features. Each was organized and planned. Each was an effort to steal an election and disfranchise voters. Each was animated by white racist fears....

By mid-February 2021, American deaths from COVID-19 may well surpass the country’s 405,400 deaths during the Second World War. By around mid-May, more Americans will have died from the virus than during the Civil War, which killed 655,000, and the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, when 675,000 are estimated to have perished. Yet America’s largely self-inflicted COVID-19 disaster may be eclipsed by the country’s political unraveling, which has proceeded with warp speed in the last few weeks, with the once celebrated American way of succession in power via the ballot box dealt a body blow by a large sector...