Unity amid diversity: key takeaways from Biden's
and Harris's speeches
The president- and vice-president-elect offered a
message of hope following their election victory
Julia
Carrie Wong
@juliacarriew
Email
Sun 8 Nov
2020 03.58 GMTFirst published on Sun 8 Nov 2020 03.51 GMT
Joe Biden calls for unity, unity, unity
Throughout
his campaign, Joe Biden spoke about how he was running to restore “the soul of
America”, and he returned to the sentiment again and again in his victory speech.
There was the Obamaesque: “I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide,
but to unify; who doesn’t see red and blue states, but a United States.” There
was the biblical: “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season – a
time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow, and a time to heal. This is the
time to heal in America.” And there was plain-spoken Joe from Scranton: “Let’s
give each other a chance.”
This pair will celebrate America’s diversity
From the
moment that Kamala Harris, in suffragette white, appeared on stage to the
strains of Mary J Blige’s Work That, it was clear that this pair of leaders
would celebrate America as it is – not hearken back to the whiter America of
the past. Biden celebrated “the broadest and most diverse coalition in history
– Democrats, Republicans, independents, progressives, moderates, conservatives,
young, old urban, suburban, rural, gay, straight, transgender, white, Latino,
Asian, Native Americans,” as well as “the African American community”, which he
especially praised for standing up for him “when this campaign was at its
lowest ebb”.
“We must
make the promise of the country real for everybody, no matter their race, their
ethnicity, their faith, their identity, or their disability,” he added.
Harris paid
tribute to her mother, who immigrated to the US from India at the age of 19,
not knowing her daughter would go on to be, as Biden said, “the first woman,
first Black woman, first woman of South Asian descent, and first daughter of
immigrants ever elected to national office in this country”. It was a night to
celebrate finally breaking that stubborn glass ceiling. “I may be the first
woman in this office,” Harris said. “I won’t be the last.”
America turned away from its “darkest impulses” –
but it was close
Biden only
mentioned Donald Trump once, and only in reference to the people who voted for
the president, but the specter of the sitting president loomed over both speeches.
Both Harris and Biden made reference to the fragile state of American democracy
– and the other direction things could have gone. “Our very democracy was on
the ballot in this election,” Harris said.
Biden
called for the end of “this grim era of demonization”, saying: “It’s time to
put away the harsh rhetoric, to lower the temperature, to see each other again,
to listen to each other again.” Perhaps the closest Biden came to directly
invoking the ugly racism and demagoguery of the Trump era came in a reference
to Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address: “Our nation is shaped by the
constant battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses. It is time
for our better angels to prevail.”
There is a lot of work to be done – and it starts
with controlling Covid
As much as
Americans may want to sit back and let a pair of competent, even-tempered
adults take the wheel for the next four years, both Harris and Biden were clear
that the country is not in the best shape – and fixing it won’t necessarily be
easy.
“Now is
when the real work begins – the hard work, the necessary work, the good work,”
Harris said. Biden spoke of “the great battles of our time” and delineated six
key priorities: the coronavirus, the economy, healthcare, “the battle to
achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism”, the climate crisis and
“the battle to restore decency, defend democracy and give everybody in this
country a fair shot”.
Addressing
the pandemic will be the first order of business, he said, and something he
will begin addressing with the appointment of scientists to a Covid transition
team on Monday. “Our work begins with getting Covid under control,” he said. “I
will spare no effort or commitment to turn this pandemic around.”
Though
Biden made few references to the rest of the world, what he said of America’s
role within it will undoubtedly be reassuring to many. “Tonight, the whole
world is watching America,” Biden said. “I believe at our best, America is a
beacon for the globe, and we lead not by the example of our power, but by the
power of our example.”
For the
past four years, many have watched in horror or fearful anticipation of what
would fall out of the president’s mouth next. On Saturday night, over the
course of 30 minutes, Harris and Biden stood before the world to speak of
shared values and aspirations, without insulting any nation or group of people,
without invoking hatred or fear, and without threats or rancor.
That sound
you hear? That’s the sound of billions of people exhaling. It’s been a
long four years.
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