This Is What a President Sounds Like

Joe Biden speaks to the nation in a statesmanlike and conciliatory manner following his election victory. His wish to unify the country is honest. Donald Trump is not taking part.

The Americans are getting what many have so sorely missed: a president for the entire country. Joe Biden left no doubt about that in his first speech to the nation as president-elect. “I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide, but unify,” he said in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, where he jogged onto the stage and was celebrated by supporters. It was time to put the harsh rhetoric aside. “Now let’s give each other a chance,” he said.

The map of the United States, which everyone was glued to after the election, may be painted in Democratic and Republican colors, but Biden tried to overcome the divide. He doesn’t see “red states and blue states, only the United States.” He will “work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me” as those to whom he owed his victory. To all those who voted for Donald Trump, Biden said, “I understand the disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple times myself.” But political opponents should no longer view each other as enemies, he said. “They are not our enemies, they are Americans.”

The country has not heard a speech from such a powerful voice for four years. And that is what many Americans will adjust to most quickly; that contempt for democracy and the rule of law, science and truth will not pour from every line spoken to anyone who does not follow along uncritically. That there is someone speaking whom everyone can be proud of, if they are ready to leave the “grim era of demonization” behind them, as Biden put it. But he will not be able to heal the “soul of America” alone.

’Beacon for the World’

As one might have expected, Biden may have found the right words, statesmanlike, clear and conciliatory. With the necessary empathy evoked by talking about a “beacon for the world” that America should be again, talking of angels and eagle wings and an “inflection point” that the incoming president compared to the challenges that faced Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama, Biden’s victory is certainly historic, and the task that lies before him immense. But what is all that worth, while Trump still has almost half the country under his spell?

If the loser would concede defeat, it would not only be a gesture of decency, not just a pleasant tradition at the end of an ugly election campaign as the U.S. has often experienced, this time in excess, it would be the most effective way to restore peace, even more so than Biden’s gentle invitation to disappointed voters. If only the loser would tell his own supporters that they fought, that it wasn’t enough, but that’s okay – now help this man, he is our president now. That is precisely something we cannot expect from Trump.

Biden can rightly claim a “convincing victory,” around 74 million votes of the “broadest and most diverse coalition” that far exceeds the consistent core of Democratic voters. And the mobilization on both sides was extraordinary. But it is yet to be seen how many of the approximately 70 million who voted for Trump are willing to “lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again,” as Biden swore. In any case, Trump will not be involved in this project.

Biden cannot start with the work that lies before him as president until Jan. 20. This is a long way off not only in terms of the pandemic, which has remained out of control under Trump. Biden plans to convene a task force of experts as soon as Monday who will help him define a plan “built on bedrock science … constructed out of compassion, empathy and concern.” This effort will only become effective once Biden is in office, as with all other political projects.

But Biden can and must start fighting beforehand for the healing process that began with this appearance before the nation. Trump is still a strong competitor when it comes to being heard in the U.S. these days. He still holds the White House, the cameras and microphones are still pointing at him. The incoming president knows that. “Let us be the nation that we know we can be,” he said in Wilmington. Maybe that is Biden’s clumsy version of Obama’s “Yes We Can.” Now he must give it life.