Let me get his out of the way at the start. When the Democrats in America held their primaries to choose a candidate to take on T**** I didn’t support Joe Biden. In my view what America needed was a new generation of leadership with fresh new voices and ideas. Someone who could break the deadlock in politics and tackle the long term inequalities and racism right at the heart of the US economic and political system.
Joe seemed old, tired, and just another privileged white man.
How times change. As he spoke on the steps of the Capitol this morning, he mentioned the kinds of things a President should talk about – unity, equality, fairness.
Compared to his predecessor, his sentences were articulate and inspiring. He spoke about challenges and solutions. He didn’t whine, or praise himself. He appealed to the better part of his people’s nature, rather than use divisive and insulting words.
Biden has outlined clear strategies to overcome the huge challenges the US faces right now, particularly Covid.
The people he has nominated for his cabinet and other senior appointments represent the diversity of the real America.
He has chosen a woman with Black and Asian heritage as Vice President who is intelligent and capable.
What a contrast to the bombastic cowardly criminal who has now left the White House. A man who is directly responsible for 400,000 deaths from Covid in the US. A man who put incompetent and vested interests in roles they were patently unqualified for and who used his position for his own ends.
The biggest challenge Biden and indeed the entire country faces, is acknowledging and then fixing the broken economic and political system.
Part of that process involves a thorough investigation into and reckoning for all those in Congress and various agencies who enabled and abetted the corruption and anti-democratic actions of T****. It needs to be open and transparent and fair, but it needs to happen.
The Republican Party also needs to face up to the fact that they enabled T**** for their own political gain and out of cowardice. People like Mitch McConnell need to own up to that rather than now cry off their culpability.
It doesn’t pay to hero-worship any politician, and despite my liberal/centrist beliefs, I do not believe the Democrats are saints. But they certainly seem better able to fix up the mess America is in right now, and Biden is a much better President than the idiot before him.
It’s not going to be easy, but for now, let’s share in a collective sigh of relief and look forward to four years of real adults in the White House.
