Doomed to Fail - Ep 166: Ye Olde Traditions: Presidential Inaugurations

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Well, well, well! Why do we do all the festivities around a presidential inauguration anyway? Today, let's look at some of the most famous speeches and learn the history behind the US Presidential transfer of power, from Washington's inauguration in downtown NYC to the tradition of leaving a letter for your successor! Some of our favorites will include FDR's jab at Hoover and JFK's subtle nods at Eisenhower!  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Boom, we are back online. Taylor, welcome to the, I don't know why I'm welcoming you to your own show. Hi, Taylor, how are you? I'm fine.

How are you? I'm good. I'm good. obviously very confused, but I'm doing well. But welcome Fars and welcome everybody to doomed to fail. We are a twice weekly podcast. We bring you historical disasters, failures, interesting stories. And I'm Taylor, joined by Fars.

And we are fine. We're fine. Welcome everyone. Welcome. I went to a wonderful women's retreat this weekend. It was three days of like private chef made food and yoga and a sound bath and a massage and a hot tub. And it was amazing. So I did that, not a ladies retreat, although it actually was mostly ladies.

There's a place here in Austin called Miraval, which I think is a Hyatt property. And it's unique in a sense that it's almost like a commune situation where you just stay in these little huts and cabins. They're really nice. It's a really, really nice place. And the entire resort is like cell phoneless and it's super hot, super quiet. And it just has open spaces for like yoga and meditation and like a pool. area. Like, it's just very, I don't know, woo-woo-ish. But I thought it was really relaxing. It's really nice. Really nice. Yeah, I loved it. It was definitely, like, it was, um, run by my friends,

Caitlin and Jen. And so they have, like, a whole thing that you do. And we, you know, had a bunch of, like, little sessions and stuff where we talked about ourselves. And it was great. Sweet. Yeah. Very fun. Was that in, um, Joshua Tree? No, it was near San Diego. Okay. Nice, beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Sweet. So, am I going first today? Yeah, go ahead.

Okay, so I have a fun one that's like a little bit different from our normal format. And if I'm being totally real, it took me until I realized that it's inauguration day to come with the idea. Because it's like, where did all these traditions come from? Why do we do the things we do? And I really just like a lot of really cool fun. traditions that has like a lot of like backstories to it that I thought would be interesting they could talk about so we're going to get into inaugurations um and I'm actually going to end on like a really fun like hate filled relationship between two former presidents that are not

going to be Biden and Trump ironically I can't wait yeah it'll be fun so first tradition leaving a letter for your successor I'm sure you're aware of this right Okay. So do you know who started the tradition? Link, no. I was going to get someone who died. The two first guesses were people who died. Like, they would not have known. I don't know. It's way early in that. So Ronald Reagan was the very first president to do this. And he left the letter for the guy who was his VP when he was president, George H.W. Bush, when he became president. And I think his letter to his successor is probably the funnest out of all of them.

And, I mean, Reagan was always known to have a sense of humor. He ended up, he actually hand-drew an elephant surrounded by turkeys. And at the top of the letter, he printed, don't let the turkeys get you down. And then he wrote a little nice letter underneath that about, like, hey, like, welcome to the office. You're going to have a great time, do all that good stuff. H.W. Bush's letter to Clinton was the first time that it was referenced that a successor's success was the country. success. You know, they say, like, we're all rooting for you because your success is the country's

success. He was the first one to do that. Interestingly enough, when Clinton left a letter for George W. Bush, he said, quote, the burdens you now shoulder are great, but often exaggerated. And I was like,

how can you say that? You got impeach. Like, your wife almost left you. You bombed a pharmaceutical company. You oversaw genocide in Rwanda, and he was Like, eh, it's not that tough. He's a chill guy. He's a chill guy.

I was like thinking, I was thinking about, I would just think about Phil Hartman again. I think this weekend, but just when he's like, warlord attack or whatever. He's like, warlord, warlord, while he's like taking fries and, and. Yeah. She's for grips and people about SNL's kid. That's the best one. Oh, my God. But George W. Bush left a really heartfelt one.

I think that the one that he left for Obama was probably the most, like, heartfelt letter out of all. of them that we know of. Obama's letter to Trump, it was weird and interesting. It wasn't weird. It was just really, really interesting some of the stuff that he said in there because now that you see where the country is at, you're like, oh, you totally

missed, you missed the cues of like what was going on here. Because what he ended up saying in his letter to Trump was he was referring to American leadership in the world and he goes, quote, it's up to us to sustain the international order. And I was like,

Wait, I think the countries resoundedly decided that we don't want to be, like, we're in charge of being the world police at this point. And so, anyway, that was really interesting how he, like, went that direction with it. It was a long letter, actually. That's just one piece of it that I kind of plucked out of it. Yeah. But mostly I plucked that out of it because I was just like, I was like, that's, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, yeah. people don't want that anymore like I don't know

I just thought it was like it was interesting because it's clear that he just comes from a different frame of reference and then I feel like people do want that yes other people want that but if you're in America you're like why don't we just take care of Americans

instead of like having wars funded across the world like yeah I mean we're not we don't like we're You're not good at it. We don't agree on that as a country. There's no thing we're like, we agree on that.

It exists, but it's not like everyone. I mean, I don't know. I think that going to in Middle Eastern wars probably isn't a good thing to do. I mean, I don't know. But not everybody thinks that way. I don't know. It's like it wasn't like, well, yeah. That's, I mean, that's kind of the thing.

It's kind of like what I found interesting about it was because I think, like Bush got us into wars and then the Republicans were obviously super into war. and then you have Democrats who I don't know if they were like super into wars necessarily but it's like whatever this is like the engine that's in motion let's keep it going and that's what Obama is referring to in this letter and it's like no we like let's not do that anymore

like we're not good at it we're not good at invading other countries we're not good at like trying to do regime changes and then Trump did leave a letter for Biden and we actually have no idea what he wrote all Biden would ever disclose is quote the president wrote a very very generous letter because it was private I won't talk about it

until I talked to him but it was generous which I don't know yeah I don't know what he could have wrote in the middle of January 6th it was like so I imagine what Trump wrote was

fuck you fuck your election yeah exactly I'm dumb or like he's like drew a picture of like a private finger yeah and then that was it if he did it at all you know well so trump i just saw this i have CNN running in the background can you hear that i heard that little scratch squeak okay let me know if it was we're distracting um Biden did leave trump a letter um so we know we don't know what it says up he i mean he literally apparently just got to like

the resolute desk so like we don't know but there is a letter there apparently um so tradition number two is location so as with this situation much has been made about the inauguration location since trump decided to like mix it up at the very last second but the constitution doesn't actually define does not define a location for the inauguration um and some haven't even been in washington dc so for example george washington um his inauguration was at federal hall in New York City, which I've never, I didn't even know, I'm going to know what that is. Do you know where it is?

Yeah, I know exactly where it is. It's downtown. It's like near the World Trade Center. But like, D.C. wasn't the Capitol then. Yeah, I don't know when D.C. was a capital. It doesn't matter. I mean, the Capitol was New York and then it was like, then I think maybe Philadelphia, but then D.C. Well, even later on when D.C. was a capital.

There's inaugurations that didn't even happen there. It was made of the Capitol in 1790. yeah well yeah since then there's been I'll get in for other ones that didn't happen there so um 1801 is when inaugurations as like a matter of practice move to the US capital um and it was but up until 1981 it was on it was held on the east front the side that's like a parking lot right now that's where it was held it was 1981 was the first time when it was held

on the west front, the one that we're like most accustomed to seeing, when Reagan took the oath of office for his first term there. So, interestingly enough, this is like a very fascinating, like, indication of, like, who our politicians are these days. So when Reagan took that inauguration that moved to the west side of the capital on his first term, he was just shy. he was like 30 days shy or not even that like 15 days shy of his 70th birthday he was the oldest person

to assume the presidency until 2017 when Trump took the oath at 70 years and 220 days old then four years later Biden took it at 78 years old and now

Trump is taking it at 78 years and 220 days old yeah yeah it's crazy I mean, I can't get much, we can't go much further. People don't live forever. Why not? Why not?

I mean, what if we end up living to 150? Like, maybe we'll have a hundred-year-old president. Who knows? I guess. I mean, I would just, like, if I would, I don't want to work when I'm 42. Why would I want to work when I'm 78? I don't know.

And I know, and I know, I know, I'm, like, different because I'm, like, not someone who would do this because you have to be a certain kind of crazy to even do it anyway. But, like, man guys I don't know the pods of America guys were like I think Biden is quite quitting because like nobody's heard from him and like like in the last

like month or so he did a bunch of pardons today what do you mean yeah he did a thing about the he did a press conference about the ceasefire I mean dude he's been he's been the guy's checked out he's like

fucking I'm done with this like I'm leaving anyways yeah so So, including Trump's second inauguration, seven presidents have been sworn in inside the U.S. Capitol. Reagan was the last one sworn in the capital. Well, sorry. They say Reagan was the last one that was sworn in the actual capital, the rotunda, but he was

actually privately sworn in at the White House for a second term. Then the actual ceremony was being held in the rotunda. So slight deviation there. Cool. after only had a private swearing in for his fourth term and Obama did a private swearing in for his second term since January 20th fell on a Sunday that year so I didn't know that either my favorite thing inaugural speeches this is my favorite so I love this because there's two tax that presidents take here which I've noticed one is they try to

unify the country which is like blah boring who cares the better one the more fun one is they use it as an opportunity to just dunk on the previous administration while that previous administration is sitting right next to them. So I think that from what I had gathered with researching, the kind of break from civility really started with FDR's dig at Herbert Hoover, which is going to be a theme later on, mostly because Herbert Hoover's presidency was overshadowed by the Great Depression and the perception that Hoover's failure to address the economy was driven by his fear of the federal government getting too involved in people's lives

which is why FDR and his inauguration utters the famous line the only thing we have to fear is fear itself that was like their version of a dunk like he was dunking on Hoover being like hey this guy was too big of a wuss to take care of our problems and we're not going to live in fear anymore nice

JFK also apparently dunked on Eisenhower who in the buildup to the Cold War took more an indirect approach. So JFK at his inauguration said, quote, let every nation know whether it wishes us well or ill that we shall pay any price bear any burden meet any hardship.

Mostly because he was, he actually addressed Nikita Cruzchev, whereas up until this point, Eisenhower was very much like, no, let's not go face to face with these guys. Like we can just use diplomacy, back channel our way around this. And JFK was the one that came, was like, no, no, the

way this guy's running, this is not going to work. Let's change it up. Reagan indirectly addressed Jimmy Carter's perceived government overreach into people's lives by saying in his inauguration that government is not the solution to our problems. It is the problem. But no, but I know, but I'm a

government person. I think that the government should help people. Yeah, of course they should help people. It's just like, yeah. I mean, there's... They should be available to help people. Yeah, I'm not of the demographic that requires the government to be a part of my day-to-day life. But But if I had a, you know, huge drug problem and a kid who I couldn't take care of, then, yeah, I mean, as a citizen, I'd want the government to take care of that kid, figure out how to get my shit together.

Sure, but it's also, it's like everything else, too, you know, like your ability to get good from other countries, like your ability to exist. You know, the government doesn't, it's involved in your everyday, you know? yeah so we didn't do it right i don't know what that is but i'm just saying that like jada hoover is out of everyone else's phone why shouldn't he be on mine we just watched the clue so very apropos of this conversation actually um so my favorite inauguration speech had to do with Trump's first inauguration where he talked about how the era of American carnage is over and then George W. Bush leaned over to Hillary Clinton and said, quote, well, that was some weird shit. That was like definitely my favorite moment.

Do you remember that? She laughed at him today. I don't remember. they seem to have struck about friendship yeah i mean i know someone who works in the government and they were telling me how surprised they were at how a lot of people who are very against each other publicly or whatever like they're friends you know so the other fun one is the hand on the bible thing which has a lot of really cool history behind it so swearing in on the with your hand on the bible that was sort of by George Washington. Again, not in the Constitution.

The only deviations from this are John Quincy Adams. He sworn on a book of law. Teddy Roosevelt didn't use any book when he was sworn in. LBJ was sworn in with his hand on a Catholic missile, which I didn't even know what that was, but I guess it's the book of prayers.

Yeah. And some presidents use their own personal Bibles. Biden used his own personal Bible. Others have used George Washington's Bible. George W. Bush, he wanted to use George Washington's Bible, but apparently, like, obviously this thing is super old and it's super frail. And his touring in took place, like, on a rainy day in D.C. And I guess, like, they told them no, you can't use it, which I didn't even know you could

do that. I didn't know you could tell a president no to something like that, but I guess you can, which is interesting. Lincoln's Bible also has a story. It was actually owned by a clerk of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and used by Lincoln at his inauguration. Obama also used the Lincoln Bible, as did Trump, although in both of his

swearing-ins, he had the Lincoln Bible in a protective box, then his family Bible on top of it. And I just found this out, like right before we start recording, that at the swearing-in that just happened, he didn't have a handle the Bible at all. So Malani... He just forgot.

He'd say again? He just forgot. Maybe. So Melania held both Bibles up the way she did in the first inauguration. And then he just had his hand by his side. And you can't actually tell if you watched it on TV, but apparently there's some pictures of him from the side that you can actually see. Yeah, I've seen them. I think he just didn't pay. Tyson wasn't really painted him. So what is actually required by the Constitution? So the reciting of the oath of office, actually the main thing that's required by the Constitution. And the language used is, quote, I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the, the office of the president of the United States and will be and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. The so help me God part, that's not in there. That was added by George Washington. So the other thing to find is timing.

So the original timing as a find in the Constitution was March 4th. And then later on, there was a constitutional amendment moving it to January 20th. The reason being that that's a lot of time for a lame duck president, right? Like, I mean, you lose your election in November. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're just going to chill for five months. Like, it's not good. You're going to have five months notice at your job. Totally, totally.

Yeah. And then if the incoming president doesn't take the oath at the specified time, which is noon eastern time on the 20th, then the incoming VP would then assume office is the rules. That's fun. So, but. Go ahead. But they have to be sworn in. Yes.

Yeah. But they could be sworn at any time. They could be sworn at any time. That one's not constitutionally defined. Got it. So the funniest, not funniest, but the funniest transition of power, in my opinion, was between Herbert Hoover and FDR. Do you know about this? But you told me that about the note.

Yes. Okay, what else? These two hated each other. I love that. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel good that, like, I mean, I know my, I know that these things have happened in the past. and everything happens and whatever we have to continue to be alive but um i do enjoy that it's it's funny because as i'm telling you the story because the story really just paints like

harbert hoover is like an arrogant dipshit i've thought about about learning more about him because i just i know hoovervilles i know yeah me too blame for the depression and all of those things but like yeah i don't know i don't know a ton but what's funny is like as I'm telling this story just remember that FDR by almost every historian's account is like a top three president

it's like some variation of FDR Washington Lincoln like it's just like they're kind of all in there together and like it just depends on which historian you're reading about but the order will change but there'll be those three for obvious reasons um so as I'm reading this like that's who Hoover thinks

is like a con artist and like charlatan it's really funny um so three years so the the election was the election that um was between uh hoover and roosevelt was in 1932 three years earlier in 29 is when the stock market collapsed leading to the great depression in unemployment was at 25 percent and exactly what you said the thing i remember the most about this era from like school was hooverville's which is where people would live because they couldn't afford housing so they would put up shanty towns around the city

and Hoover's approach this was called like the voluntary policy which was basically call it businesses and be like hey please don't lay anybody off or lower wages just don't do it and we'll be fine that was his approach which is like crazy so FDR who was then governor of New York he showed up

with his new deal and he said hey we can do more and the reception of the voting populace was huge he won 57 to 39% over Hoover FDR basically painted Hoover throughout the campaign as like

a feckless and ineffective leader and it reminded me a ton of like how the Reagan and how the Reagan and Carter campaigns kind of size each other up where Carter was kind of shown as like this like nice

guy but like is that really who you you want to like rattle a saber it was one of those deals um so one tradition that isn't um inauguration related but election related is that the outgoing president invites the incoming president to the white house to talk through major issues they'll they'll basically be inheriting along with photo ops and and show like a peaceful transfer power that actually starts with hoover inviting fDR to the white house interestingly yeah um and this was almost seen as an attempt by Hoover to address his issues with FDR's characterization of his economic policies. I don't think this was done because he was trying to be super cool guy to FDR because what ended

happening was that he basically just put FDR in a room and just started lecturing him for an hour about economic policies and why he did the things that he did. And later on, Hoover would tell people that he had been, quote, educating a very ignorant but well-meaning young man. that was his perception and like mostly of what I read of FDR

is like you're just like listening to a child have a tantrum and just be like just go just keep going it's fine

like just go like you know like he didn't seem to engage with it but it was obvious that Hoover was super upset and pissed

about the election um I wonder if a little bit of it was to be like look at the White House. It's not wheelchair accessible. Maybe because there was

one story I read was that he was shocked to see how paralytic FTHR was. FDR was. FDR hit it decently well. So they barely talk after this one visit, the point where the media took notice and started writing stories about it. They did ride together

in the inaugural car ride to the Capitol building. And this was consistently done. There's a picture of this and from what has been said about this ride they didn't speak to each other at all like they were just like I'm done with this guy screw this guy it's really interesting because it wasn't as like egregious as Trump not accepting election results in 2020 but this was like Hoover saying I don't think the American people know what they bought because FDR's campaign lied about me so much that he was like he got cheated is the sentiment that was coming across the page of Uber's perspective of this like he didn't think that he actually lost like fair and square I think he thought like these guys made stuff out about me and lied about me and

American they're making people like they needed someone to get in the way of their own decision making and apparently he spent most of his career trying to disrupt any new deal initiatives by FDR like he was actively trying as a private citizen to like destroy his agenda yeah that's how big that's how badly that's how convicted he was in his beliefs of what happened here so really fun

little little little grubby little man I know I have no idea it looks like but I also feel like he's grubby he looks like the citizen cane guy orson Wells he looks like Orson Walls he looks like Orson Walls he does yeah um that's my story cool

who am i looking at oh i feel like something else someone else says something about herbert hoover today it was maybe my father-in-law texted me what did he text me have you read this book oh a book about mckinley he's curious about mickinley um Yeah, that's so, I don't know, so interesting. I wonder, oh, my, it's so funny.

You can look up sad, Herbert Hoover as one of the options when you're Googling a picture of him. She doesn't look sad in these. He's kind of cute. I like a round face. But he, you know, that's funny. I don't know. Yeah. I wonder what, I feel like I don't understand, and I know we have some Canadian listeners,

and I think a couple downloads, like over in the UK, like, I don't understand how in parliamentary systems, the leader is always like, I'm just going to step down today. There's elections next week or whatever. It is wild. You know? And that's so different. And ours is like, I don't know, I feel like that's never,

I mean, people have stepped down and like whatever we have like a thing, but you're not like, oh, there's a surprise election coming up like that. That never happens here. I feel like time to do it. But then also, I don't know if you, I watched like a little bit of when King Charles was coordinated. And that is ridiculous. He like sits on that rock that like means something

There's like diamonds that like I just have so much blood on them And it's like what is happening you know You know what's funny is you as you say that was I did watch the entire inauguration And and I was like why am I so into this and find it so interesting Because I think the exact opposite of the British version where I'm like This is just so much pomp and circumstances for like a useless honorific yeah like i guess that's why i guess because being president of united states isn't a useless honorific but being like king of england is kind of a useless honorific

yeah i mean you get a lot of money but yeah you don't do anything but do you get money don't they always have money like isn't like well they have they just have like a billion dollars that's like the family money i don't really have to like give it back if they're not working anymore but they get money from taxes and like the people pay for like their castles to be cleaned do you have anything for us to read off um I have a couple of things I think I have a message from our nadine in Canada about Canadian bacon which was a really funny she was like do you think that that's what we have instead of bacon in Canada because it is not what we have like they call it they call regular american bacon side bacon and that's what they um

mean when they say bacon otherwise otherwise the other stuff the round stuff is back bacon which i imagine is we're talking about where it is on the pig right so like the back bacon is the canadian bacon and then side bacon is like bacon bacon interesting okay so they do have our bacon then they do yeah i feel like why wouldn't they would like have to have it They would not have it. No, what if they just export the side to America? Every single pig in Canada, part of it goes to America for bacon, and Canadians are not allowed to make that part into bacon

and have delicious breakfast sandwiches. I mean, what if? It is a tale as old as time that is part of a contract that was signed between the two countries in 1734. Some sort of a treaty, I'm sure. Yeah, of the bacon leader. Well, thank you, Nadine. clarifying us

clarifying us. Thank you. If we ever go. I thank you, Nadine for all of your tips on, I asked her some questions about visiting Canada. So thank you for answering me there too. Sweet. Yeah. Anything else? No.

All right. Well. Oh, yeah, thanks. I guess I could sign us out and tell people we're finding me. I'm like, I don't know. Yes. Let's see where to find us. Please. Thank you, friends. For listening. Please tell your friends. Find us everywhere on the internet. We're even on TikTok.

gets back who knows okay who cares um but tell your friends um we have had people find us on there and like us and they've been commenting and i really appreciate that so at doom to fail pod everywhere on all the socials and thank you for leaving us a review if you've done that too appreciate you appreciate you all um thank you taylor thank you all we'll join you again later on this week i'm going to go ahead and cut it off Thank you.