Root for Biden— and for America
For the man from Delaware, the presidency in a time of crisis is the challenge of a lifetime.
Yes, the American people have elected Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., their 46th president. On his third try, over a period of 32 years, the nearly 78-year-old former senator and vice president, will assume office at a time of bitter dissension, governmental dysfunction and twin crises that have cost thousands of lives and countless livelihoods. Lincoln and Roosevelt may have assumed the presidency at a more difficult time in this nation’s history, but few other incoming presidents have ever faced so much.
Nearly half the voting public voted for the incumbent and a significant portion adamantly refuses to accept the legitimacy of Biden’s election. The divide is all around us. Houstonians who might have taken a drive through the countryside toward Austin in recent weeks — through Sealy and New Ulm and Fayetteville — would have passed through a virtual cavalcade of Trump-Pence banners and signs on pasture fences and along the side of the road. Giant Trump-Pence flags fluttered in the breeze at ranch gateways and in farmhouse front yards. Only in urban areas — Houston, Austin and elsewhere across the state — did small thickets of Biden-Harris signs crop up like mushrooms after a shower.
After President Donald Trump’s legal challenges to the election have revealed themselves as the stalling tactics they are, after he has decamped to Mar-a-Lago and Biden is at last sworn in Jan. 20, those signs and banners may come down. But the anger and distrust of Trump’s true believers will continue to burn white-hot.
We hate to say it, but the odds are good that we will continue to be two nations divided by race, religion, culture and cable channels. For the sake of our democracy, for the future of the Republic, the breach must be healed.
It’s time for Americans to not only accept Biden’s election but to root for his presidency — the same as many Trump critics, including this editorial board, did after Hillary Clinton’s loss. Yes, that support dwindled, but only over time, as those who hoped for the best from Trump got only division, incompetence and norms-busting behavior unbecoming of this proud nation.
Biden has consistently expressed his commitment to restoring calm, competence and basic decency to the public sphere. He has pledged to be America’s president, not just his party’s. In words surely cringeworthy to some fellow Democrats, Biden keeps reiterating: “I will work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as I will for those who did.”
That message is welcome, reassuring, and we intend to hold him to it. Yet much of the restoration is not the responsibility of the new president. It’s ours.
We can live with being a fractious nation, just not fractured. Those rural and small town Texans, for example, are our friends, our neighbors, often our relatives. We can have our differences, and we can express those differences energetically, vociferously — that’s the essence of a self-governing nation — but we need somehow to recover the patriotic notion that we are fellow Texans, fellow Americans, participating in this difficult democratic experiment together. Our places of worship, our fraternal organizations and our social clubs can perhaps take the lead.
In addition to helping heal a fractured nation, Biden faces monumental challenges. We expect him to immediately marshal a national strategy to combat a pandemic that is likely to kill 400,000 of our fellow Americans by the end of the year. In the tradition of a wartime president, we expect Biden to rely on our top scientists, doctors and public health experts, as well as business, industry and local government leaders, in a focused, organized all-out fight.
We expect him to enlist his fellow Democrats and public-spirited Republicans in Congress to pass economic relief measures designed to ensure that businesses large and small survive while they take the necessary measures to defeat the pandemic. Recognizing that the public’s health and a healthy economy are as intertwined as DNA’s double helix, we expect him to remind his fellow Americans that more than three-quarters of a century ago, our forebears sacrificed lives and limbs overseas and food and fuel back at home to win a war against implacable foes.
Our sacrifice today? Wear a mask and keep 6 feet apart. “Come on, man,” as Biden often remarks. We can do this.
The new administration also must confront numerous government agencies, including Justice, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development and Interior, crippled, corrupted or both by the Trump administration’s disdain for a functioning bureaucracy.
We expect Biden to restore the federal government’s good health, and also America’s place of trust and leadership in the world. Rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and reenlisting in the existential fight against the calamitous effects of climate change is a vital first step.
“Welcome back America!” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote moments after Biden clinched victory in a tweet echoed round the world. We expect Biden to reconstruct an administration our allies can trust and adversaries respect. The new president has dealt with world leaders for decades; we’re confident that mutual regard and basic decency will be hallmarks, as well as deep knowledge and savvy that can’t be neutralized by flattery and authoritarian posturing.
Immigration, issues of race, criminal justice and health care will also require an experienced, steady hand to guide them to resolution.
For the man from Delaware, the oldest president we have ever elected — but also one of the most experienced — the presidency at a time of crisis is the challenge of a lifetime. We wish him strength and wisdom as he seeks not only to lead but also to heal. He deserves a chance to do just that.