What will it take to unify the country? Why experts say a change in the Oval Office won’t be enough

BOSTON — In his inaugural address, President Biden said, “Without unity, there is no peace.”

Sadly, as we have seen over the last year, this is still a nation divided in many respects.

Depending on what side you are on, you may be breathing a sigh of relief saying maybe this is the beginning of unity or you may be saying it will take a lot more than a change in the Oval Office to unite us.

“It’s been a very unsettling four years culminating in 2020 when everything went off the rails,” said Beacon Hill resident Jennifer Law.

“Exhausting, terrifying, anger-inducing but also a lot of people came together,” said Beacon Hill resident Joe Rosenbaum. “A lot of people working really hard to do what they can in a really difficult situation.”

The amount of security around the nation’s Capitol and state capitols proves this was one of the most contentious elections in history. The differing feelings also evident from the insurgence we saw January 6th.

We spoke with a former President Obama campaign adviser who says moving past this could take decades.

Aliyu: “What would it take to bring unity?”

“The division we see now actually goes all the way back to the founding of the country and it has shown up in various forms throughout the history, most violently previously in the Civil War,” said Former President Obama campaign adviser Spencer Critchley. “In many ways that is of course driven by racism, but it’s actually bigger and deeper than that. It starts with first of all accountability for people who have committed all crimes against democracy like the Capitol rioters, then we need to re-establish what truth is because that’s been attacked thanks to the cynical assaults on the free press and exploitation of social media.”

Former President Bush chief of staff Andy Card, seen famously whispering in the President’s ear on 9/11, says the way to speed up unifying the country is with the words we use with one another.

“Disagreements are the oxygen of democracy. So I’m not suggesting people should find a way to always agree. There should be disagreement, but you should disagree in such a way that you invite someone to be part of a solution and maybe find the courage yourself to see what you can do to be part of a solution,” said Card. “President Biden gave a very important inaugural address that was looking to unite us and invite us all to have more dialogue with each other. My grandmother had a term that I wished that people would respect. She used to say ‘taste your words before you spit them out’.”

“It’s really difficult when you cannot agree on what is true and what is not true and you’re just sequestered away in your own little bubble reading the things you want to read and listen to what you want to listen to and never dealing with difficulties of reality and just lying to your self,” said Rosenbaum. “So it’s going to take President Biden or others who are open to change and not pointing the finger and having difficult conversations. We are still dealing with his issues historically they have not been resolved as a country and until we can resolve those larger issues of identity, I don’t know.”

“I have just been looking for something to cling my hopes too and I have fixated that on the presidency and it’s true he is just one person, one person cannot change everything but I do think we need a symbol that has a lot of value for people because right now there’s nothing to rally around,” said Law.

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