The massive force is to keep the peace during Wednesday’s inauguration. Not all of Colorado’s Congressional delegation will attend. But the ceremony in the age of the coronavirus will look vastly different anyway.
“The country is more divided than we’ve seen in decades but I do think an inauguration is a chance for a new president to kind of set the tone for his administration,” explained CBS4 Political analyst Dick Wadhams, who noted Republican leaders will attend and be ready to make deals.
Looking out the window of his senate office, Colorado Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet saw something like he’s never seen.
“The United States Capitol has become an armed camp. We have 25,000 National Guard… they’re streaming up and down the streets here.”
But many Republicans still have to accept a reality.
“Listen this is election is over, it’s done. President Biden won the election,” said Wadhams.
He also pointed out that even after the massive division in the Watergate era and the resignation of Richard Nixon, the nation did unify.
“I have no doubt that we’ll get through the ceremony tomorrow well,” Bennet told CBS4’s Shaun Boyd.
“I know that Joe Biden is going to give a speech that seeks to unify the country and that’s the work that we need to start doing right now.”
But that will take a degree of forgiveness for past transgressions.
“He was utterly consistent from the beginning of the campaign to the end of the campaign,” said Bennet about Biden. “And his basic point was, we’re better than this, we’ve got to turn the page on this era. And that he was going to be a president for America whether people voted for him or they didn’t vote for him.”
Wadhams believes the impeachment trial ahead in the Senate will not help.
“That is inherently divisive. I frankly don’t think it serves President-elect Biden, for him to get off to a strong start.”
Bennet says the trial in the Senate is moving ahead. Democrats have indicated their belief that President Trump needs to be held responsible the insurrection at the Capitol and the falsehoods that he pushed that led to it.
Campaign season though is now over and the nation’s problems aside from division are still significant.
“It’s been a while in America since we, we sort of understood that the campaign is one thing, that governing is something else,” said Bennet. “And I hope that there will be a new spirit in this Capitol and in Washington DC, the problems that we’re facing are severe… I want to make sure that we can look at our kids and our grandkids and say we’re leaving you with something stronger than what we found and sadly that is not what the Trump administration left us, nor is the partisan politics of the last 10 years.”
