Last week, after 4 long, divisive and tragic years, we witnessed the continuation of a 244-year-old American tradition.

It was not a peaceful transfer of power. As incoming White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain correctly noted, “there was nothing inevitable about this day.”

Nonetheless - last Wednesday we watched a quadrennial ceremony that Ronald Reagan once called both “commonplace and miraculous” - commonplace because it has happened every 4 years for the 244 - and miraculous because it has happened every 4 years for the last 244.

It was, as John F Kennedy said exactly 60 years earlier- “not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom.”

It is a ritual that in the past many of us had taken for granted. Not this year - if the last 4 years have taught us anything it is that words truly do have power and they have consequences.

Not since Abraham Lincoln, had a new president given an inaugural address to a more divided nation while under the real threat of armed conflict.

And Joe Biden rose to the occasion.

Let us never forget how close we came to last week NOT happening and as Lincoln said at Gettysburg – rededicate ourselves to a new birth of freedom – where truth, facts and power of words are given their proper place. #WordsMatter

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