Tom Kirvan
Legal News, Editor-in-Chief
Legal News, Editor-in-Chief
In his farewell address in January 1989, President Ronald Reagan defined his vision of the “shining city upon a hill,” drawing on the biblical underpinnings of the phrase that would serve as the finest example of American exceptionalism, the inherent quality that set us apart as a great nation.
“In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity,” said Reagan, a two-term president who earned the title as the “Great Communicator” during his time in office. “And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there.”
He then took notice of a growing divide in the nation, challenging political leaders and the citizenry to do better.
“We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American,” Reagan said in his final address from the Oval Office. “And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood . . . Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture.”
In closing, he urged everyone to recognize that we need to do “a better job of getting across that America” stands for freedom — “freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.”
In his inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol little more than a week later, Reagan’s successor, President H.W. Bush, would carry the theme a step further with a message that seems particularly pertinent today.
“We meet on democracy’s front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends,” said President Bush on January 20, 1989. “For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended.”
If only it was, for it was just four years ago that the Capitol — the citadel of democracy — was under siege, attacked by a violent mob determined to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The January 6, 2021 insurrection left a lasting stain on our country, one caused in large part by a would-be autocrat unwilling to accept the rule of law.
His leading role in the orchestrated attack on the Capitol has been well-documented, first by the House of Representatives when on January 13, 2021 it adopted an article of impeachment for “incitement of an insurrection.”
His culpability was confirmed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack, which presented a comprehensive 845-page report highlighting in exhaustive detail his deadly attempt to derail democracy itself. The report represented the bipartisan committee’s investigative work over an 18-month period, spelled out graphically during a series of televised hearings several summers ago.
Unfortunately, the nation’s electorate had a disturbing case of political amnesia when it journeyed to the polls in the November 2024 president election, somehow forgetting that the Republican candidate for the White House was the root cause of the insurrection – and countless other misdeeds.
Now, on January 20, 2025 — some 36 years after President Bush spoke eloquently at his inauguration — we can expect nothing of the like from the president-elect. Instead, we likely will hear of plans to take over the Panama Canal and then Greenland, all while he begins a “revenge tour” against his political foes.
There will be no talk of lessons learned or a desire to extend an olive branch in hopes of unification. Instead, it will be a time for retribution, of formally announcing plans for mass deportation of immigrants, and for get-out-of-jail-free cards for all who were convicted in the January 6 insurrection.
In a perverted sense, it will be a time when we get another bitter taste of a despot in office, doling out a history lesson that “those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”
“In my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity,” said Reagan, a two-term president who earned the title as the “Great Communicator” during his time in office. “And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get there.”
He then took notice of a growing divide in the nation, challenging political leaders and the citizenry to do better.
“We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American,” Reagan said in his final address from the Oval Office. “And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood . . . Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture.”
In closing, he urged everyone to recognize that we need to do “a better job of getting across that America” stands for freedom — “freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.”
In his inaugural address at the U.S. Capitol little more than a week later, Reagan’s successor, President H.W. Bush, would carry the theme a step further with a message that seems particularly pertinent today.
“We meet on democracy’s front porch, a good place to talk as neighbors and as friends,” said President Bush on January 20, 1989. “For this is a day when our nation is made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended.”
If only it was, for it was just four years ago that the Capitol — the citadel of democracy — was under siege, attacked by a violent mob determined to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The January 6, 2021 insurrection left a lasting stain on our country, one caused in large part by a would-be autocrat unwilling to accept the rule of law.
His leading role in the orchestrated attack on the Capitol has been well-documented, first by the House of Representatives when on January 13, 2021 it adopted an article of impeachment for “incitement of an insurrection.”
His culpability was confirmed by the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack, which presented a comprehensive 845-page report highlighting in exhaustive detail his deadly attempt to derail democracy itself. The report represented the bipartisan committee’s investigative work over an 18-month period, spelled out graphically during a series of televised hearings several summers ago.
Unfortunately, the nation’s electorate had a disturbing case of political amnesia when it journeyed to the polls in the November 2024 president election, somehow forgetting that the Republican candidate for the White House was the root cause of the insurrection – and countless other misdeeds.
Now, on January 20, 2025 — some 36 years after President Bush spoke eloquently at his inauguration — we can expect nothing of the like from the president-elect. Instead, we likely will hear of plans to take over the Panama Canal and then Greenland, all while he begins a “revenge tour” against his political foes.
There will be no talk of lessons learned or a desire to extend an olive branch in hopes of unification. Instead, it will be a time for retribution, of formally announcing plans for mass deportation of immigrants, and for get-out-of-jail-free cards for all who were convicted in the January 6 insurrection.
In a perverted sense, it will be a time when we get another bitter taste of a despot in office, doling out a history lesson that “those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.”
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