Hopeful Change

U.S. Transition shows the vigor of democracy in American power, and Joe Biden’s promising first steps.

Despite having lived through one of the most convulsive presidential elections in recent times, American democracy has once again demonstrated over the last 23 days that it is strong and resilient in the face of circumstances that have been marked, not only by how close the results were, but by the outrageous and repeated accusations of election fraud from the incumbent president, launched with hostility and obstructionism.

The exhaustive task of recounting votes, and the legal proceedings brought by Donald Trump’s team to contest some of the results, is taking place without incident; and more importantly, without any sign of altering the results, despite the enormous pressure being exerted by the current occupant of the White House, who still refuses to concede. What happened in Michigan is a good example. The State Board of Elections, after recounting the votes, confirmed Biden’s victory by 154,000 votes, despite the fact that Trump called on two Republican members of the board to withdraw their certification.

Whether he accepts the outcome or not, Trump has finally been forced to take the first step and activate the transition by asking his team to “do what needs to be done” with regard to the initial protocols. He has done so obliquely, without actually conceding victory, and via Twitter. In any case, the process of the presidential handover can be said to have begun, for example, without the president-elect having to resort to seeking private funding for the process, strange circumstance to say the least.

Meanwhile, Biden’s first steps are promising, with a return to moderation seen in his conciliatory tone ahead of victory and his call for unity in the face of the pandemic, and with his institutional professionalism. Biden has demonstrated this with the quality and symbolic nature of his first choices of people to serve in his administration. Biden will govern surrounded by figures of great strength. The appointment of Antony Blinken as secretary of state is good news in the effort to restore the role of the United States in the world, and good news as well for Europe and multilateralism. The fact that the veteran politician John Kerry is in charge of climate policy is a guarantee, after Trump’s denialism, of the turnaround Washington will make in relation to this critical issue. Also significant is the nomination of women to key positions, women recognized for their ability such as Avril Haines as director of national intelligence, and Janet Yellen as treasury secretary, and including the appointment of Alejandro Mayorkas, a Latino man, as secretary of homeland security. It remains to be seen how they will deal with the arduous tasks they face. But for now, they bring reassurance about the resilience of the American democratic system and the first decisions of the president-elect.