Op-Ed: How President Biden’s Oval Office Encapsulates His Vision Of America
At first glance, the redesigned Oval Office of President Joe Biden may appear to be indicative of little more than the antithesis of his predecessor’s decor.
In place of the Armed Forces flags and a letter from disgraced President Richard Nixon, the new commander-in-chief has chosen to return to some classic American standards for the room. After President Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20th, his administration gave a first look at his interpretation of the oblong workspace, and while many changes were obvious, Biden also made choices around the room that seemingly serve to usher in a new American era.
Now, three weeks into his administration, the dawn of that era has begun to arrive.
A deep royal blue rug has been brought out of storage from the Clinton administration, perhaps an attempt to harken back to the economic prosperity, reform, and progressivism of the 1990s.
The adornment of art in the room has been drastically changed as well.
A portrait of Andrew Jackson has been removed, the image of the notoriously racist president being replaced by Benjamin Franklin. On loan from the National Portrait Gallery include two busts of Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln.
Additional busts include Robert Kennedy (not surprising given that Biden is the second Catholic president, after Robert’s brother JFK), and labor hero Cesar Chavez, who occupies a spot on the table behind the Resolute Desk.
The addition of the Chavez bust is perhaps one of the most notable pieces. Many outlets have been quick to point out that Chavez was not a perfect icon, and was not always held in high regard by the United States government.
In spite of the skewed view of Chavez, however, his addition to the Oval Office serves as an important one, to say the least.
The effigy of a Latino laborer, a union man and the grandson of Mexican immigrants, watching over the shoulder of the president of the United States, is sending a strong message to those around the world: A new day has arrived.
Biden’s official website states that his administration will provide “a presidency for all Americans”, and it appears he is trying to take big steps to make those words count.
Perhaps placing Chavez’s bust in the room is also an attempt to symbolize the President’s desires to reach across the aisle not only to Republicans, but to the more leftist Democrats as well.
Biden’s platform was often considered one of the most centered among the large field of Democratic challengers. Many of his opponents, particularly Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), argued that Biden’s proposed plans for healthcare and education simply didn’t go far enough in combating the inequality that has overtaken America. Sanders, among other more liberal Democratic challengers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), were able to amass a large following in part by going after this centrism, particularly among college-age millennials who tend to lean farther towards the left. In order for Biden to be as successful as possible, he will have to try and find a way to bridge that gap among liberal voters.
Maybe it’s possible, then, that his placing the bust of Chavez front-and-center in the Oval Office was more than just a coincidence.
Another notable addition are the numerous portraits that hang above the large fireplace framing the room.
Notably, the visage of two bitter rivals, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, hang together, one above the other. Despite engaging in a longstanding feud (Hamilton’s opposition to Jefferson’s views was reportedly one of his main reasons for founding the Federalist Party), the duo also found ways to bridge the gap and work together.
“Even as the pair fought relentlessly, they found a way to agree on issues,” said John Ferling of TIME Magazine. “[Hamilton] in turn, was invigorated by the support, ‘seeing it as a sign that the old spirit of 1776 is rekindling’.”
Perhaps only during the Civil War has the United States been as bitterly divided as it is right now. There should be no doubt, then, that Biden’s choice to deliberately place Hamilton and Jefferson so close to each other, symbolizes more to the president than just aesthetics.
Beyond reaching out towards left-leaning Democrats, Biden must find a way to try and unite the highly contentious Republican Party towards his cause, a faction in which 70 percent of its voters believe that his election victory was fraudulent. From the COVID-19 pandemic to the heightened racial tensions across the country, the president is clearly facing an uphill battle to try and bring this nation together, and the events of Jan. 6 proved that our democracy is perhaps riding a finer line that any of us may have realized.
It is crucial, then, for President Biden to make sure that his presidency is exactly that. His.
This is because, while many of his choices in the Oval Office were new, there were also a number of returning mainstay pieces. A bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. takes the place of Winston Churchill. Hanging next to the outer door is a Childe Hassam painting, The Avenue in the Rain. Both of these are beautiful, important, and thought-provoking pieces. However, they have something in common: they also occupied the Oval Office during the Obama Administration. Biden has to ensure that this term is not looked at by his opposition as a third Obama term, as some have already been calling it.
Perhaps lumping similar artworks together is farfetched when comparing presidential administrations, but the overall message of making Biden’s presidency truly Biden’s is one that still rings true.
Again, however, it is important to remember that the decor of the Oval Office is just that. It serves to symbolize the commander-in-chief’s views, not only politically, but morally as well.
This is not to say that every choice in the office is a reflection of how he expects to run the country. Case in point: The Avenue in the Rain not only hung during Obama’s two terms, but has also been present the last four years as well, which saw Number 45 run the country in a vastly different fashion than Number 44.
At the end of the day, though, Number 46 is now his own president, and between trying to end the rage of a deadly virus and combating the spread of toxic misinformation, it can probably be assumed that not all of the decorative choices in the Oval Office were even made by him.
More changes are likely to come as the first months of Biden’s presidency move forward, and it can likely be said that the rest of the room will serve to symbolize the main mission of the next four years: Helping to heal, both literally and figuratively. It is nice to see that the most famous office in the world is once again serving as a bastion of this healing, from the visuals in the room to the man sitting behind the desk.
