The untold story of the 2013 inauguration of President Obama is the number of conservatives I’ve talked to today and this weekend who resisted the urge to rain on the president’s parade today. Typically, when I ask writers to write in the Corner for a major news event, we wind up with more copy than most busy people can read. Not so much today. (One even went to the dentist instead of watching live.)
I thought it significant, and emblematic even, on a few levels. This moment and these next few years require some pause, some reflection, some reintroductions. There’s a battle to be fought, but we are in it for the long haul. And it’s not all a political one. Not foremost, not fundamentally. The culture. The culture. The culture. Civil society.
(More about that in our inauguration survival guide today.)
What’s fascinating is that I have not encountered bitterness or anger, even though there may be some of that, too. There’s been much more of this: People want to do better, be better — more compelling, more successful at reaching more people. Without watering anything down. Without closing doors to whole communities. There’s despondency out there, for sure. But there’s also a healthy desire to begin again. Same principles, only in a language that invites everyone to the conversation.