With less than stellar verdict on promises, Biden marks one year in office
WASHINGTON: When Joe Biden became president, he inherited an America divided in almost every conceivable way, promising to be a force for unity and reconciliation.
One year after his inauguration, the country is taking stock of his success and failures.
“I think Biden entered office and it was a big, hopeful moment,” recalls Raphy Jacobson, an 18-year-old New Yorker who has run several campaigns for candidates on the left.
Elected in a country bruised by the Covid pandemic, shaken by a historic protest movement against racism, Biden pledged on January 20, 2021 to put “all my soul” into reuniting the US. But one year after the Democrat’s inauguration, Jacobson says he has “never felt more discouraged and disillusioned with the state of electoral politics”.
From the stalled giant social welfare and climate package meant to repair America to the foundering push for historic voting rights protections, “Democrats haven’t really passed anything they ran on,” he laments.
Months after his inauguration, Biden visited Tulsa, Oklahoma. Anxious to heal the fissures splintering a society on edge, he became the first president to commemorate the city’s 1921 race massacre.
“At the time, a lot of us were excited for him to come,” says Kode Ransom, a 33-year-old African-American. But the visit left a bitter taste in his mouth.
It was “a political move,” says the tour guide, bemoaning Biden’s lack of concrete action.
“We were hoping for a lot more,” says Adriana Jasso, an activist with a religious organisation that helps migrants in San Diego, California.
In front of the imposing border wall separating the US and Mexico, the 47-year-old speaks of her disappointment that Biden’s promises on immigration, like lifting curbs adopted under his predecessor Donald Trump seen as draconian, have not materialised.
But Jasso, who came to America undocumented as a teen, acknowledges that after four years of the Republican billionaire’s presidency, “we have experienced this last year as a kind of rest, a healing”.
Many Americans remain nostalgic for the Trump era, convinced that Biden has destroyed his predecessor’s achievements, especially on the economic front.
“Instead of fixing, he’s been destroying and demolishing the economy of the nation,” complains 57-year-old medic Ubaldo Miranda, from Miami. “I believe our country is in the worst situation it’s ever been in history,” he says outside a Cuban restaurant, an iconic gathering place for Florida’s Republican activists.
The party accuses Biden of having fuelled unprecedented inflation - an issue that strikes at the heart of the American household. The US is “more divided than ever”, says Miranda.
According to opinion polls, more than half of conservative voters still do not consider 79-year-old Biden to be their president, convinced - wrongly that the 2020 election was tainted by significant fraud.
“I believe the election was stolen,” says Boston resident Jenn Goode, without offering anything to back up her claim.
“I think it would have been worse if Trump had been reelected,” says Melarie Wheat, a 37-year-old Mormon Church member. “So I don’t think that Joe Biden has necessarily made us more united but I think he has prevented it from being worse.”