By Robin Givhan / The Washington Post
The American presidency is wrapped in a multitude of rituals that are powerfully, gloriously dull.
They are both intimate and grand. At their best, they convey a sense of history and stability. They convince folks that this fragile democracy sits on ground that is well-settled and solid; that it isn’t positioned directly over the fault lines of fear and selfishness. The rituals are not laws, which is why they carry such meaning. They are pacts that have been made between generations, between individuals and their most high-minded ideals. Rituals are more deeply felt than most legislation because they are things that citizens have chosen to do. They aren’t required; they’re desired. They are expected.
This month the nation mourns a former president and installs a new one in the space of two weeks. And so the country is awash in rituals; in colliding and conflicting emotions about what is wanted and what we have chosen.
President Joe Biden ordered the American flags flying over government buildings lowered to half-staff to symbolize the nation’s grief over the death of former president Jimmy Carter. The flags will remain at half-staff for 30 days because that’s the time frame laid out in the U.S. Flag Code, which lists in great detail the ways in which the Stars and Stripes should be displayed yet warns of no punishment if those codes are ignored.
So the flags in Washington will be at half-staff when President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated and returns to the White House, and this has irritated him enough to make his displeasure public on social media: “Nobody wants to see this,” Trump wrote. Considering that millions of Americans didn’t vote for Trump, that characterization is most certainly an exaggeration. But nonetheless, his pique is understandable. A flag at half-staff is a measure of a nation’s grief. Trump doesn’t want mourning at his party. He doesn’t want echoes of lingering respect for another president as he steps into the Oval Office. And it may be that he doesn’t want to be reminded that no matter the office and its power, those who occupy it are neither gods nor kings. They are merely human.
President Carter returned to Washington with all the pomp and ceremony that he is said to have disliked. But funerals — even state funerals — are for the living, not the deceased. He returned to the city on a teeth-chattering cold day in the aftermath of a snowstorm that closed both schools and federal buildings. Still, folks came to the U.S. Navy Memorial to watch as his casket was transferred from a hearse to a caisson led by shimmering black horses whose steps clip-clopped down Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Observers listened as musicians played “Hail to the Chief.” They stood quietly as the melody of the hymn “Just As I Am, Without One Plea” echoed in the late afternoon sun.
It was a remarkable few minutes, to look around as men and women — many of whom were not even born when Carter was the country’s 39th president — watched in silence as his flag-draped casket rolled by. It’s not often that one stands in a crowd in the nation’s capital and is surrounded by such astonishing quiet that it’s possible to hear the flags lining the avenue flapping in the wind, the shuffle of boots on melting ice or the sound of birds flying in formation overhead.
The procession was extravagant. District police officers led the way. Service members moved in formation to the rhythm of drum beats. The Carter family, cloaked in black, followed behind the casket, some looking toward the sidewalk filled with nondignitaries and non-VIPS and just regular folks.
This was neither a funeral nor a memorial. It was a rare tradition. And yet it felt so familiar that everyone instinctively knew what to do because, in more modest ways, everyday men and women are afforded the same respect bestowed on this former president.
Their remains may not receive a police escort on the way to their interment, but their neighbors pause when their funeral procession passes by. They stand at the curb, idle their car. They wait. If the deceased, like Carter, served in the military, their casket is draped in the American flag. A representative of the military presents their loved ones with that flag after it has been ceremoniously folded into a perfect triangle of white stars on a field of blue. In death, they are thanked for their service. A family grieves even when it celebrates a long and prosperous life and a dignified death.
The presidency is wrapped in countless rituals that exist to remind the country of the power and stature of the title. The procession down Pennsylvania Avenue NW and to the U.S. Capitol, where Carter now lies in state, speaks to the former president’s professional stature, to his historical significance. It reminds Americans of the ways in which the past influences the present. But those same rituals, despite their grandeur, also underscore the humanity of those who occupy the office. They are part of a continuum, and what they do while they hold the office is only part of an evolving story.
The laurels and speeches of a state funeral celebrate the office of the presidency and the man who occupied it. But in the quiet of a cold January afternoon, Jimmy Carter was honored, too.
Robin Givhan is senior critic-at-large writing about politics, race and the arts. Follow ger on X @RobinGivhan.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
