On 3 February, US lawmakers convened in the Washington Hilton’s International Ballroom for the 70th annual National Prayer Breakfast – an event held every year on the first Thursday in February, at which every American president has spoken since 1953.
President Biden used this year’s event to issue an unhelpful call for “unity”, which, while most likely sincere, is ultimately empty and impotent since unity with Republicans is impossible so long as they are not held accountable for the immeasurable harm their party – the party of 6 January – has done and continues to do to American democracy and society.
In any case, the National Prayer Breakfast is an event that, frankly, should cease to be held, as it not only undermines the constitutional separation of church and state, but it also creates space for a great deal of shady (and probably often illegal) dealing, power-brokering and shadow diplomacy among extremely rich, powerful Americans and their foreign counterparts, carried on conveniently outside official government channels and with no mechanisms for accountability.
