I have enjoyed reading about President-Elect Biden.
The Evan Osnos book is a good journalistic overview.
He makes the point that during the primary season Biden did not attack his opponents. This is not his style. He would disagree with their positions on the issues, but never attack the person.
Biden prevailed by rejecting tribalism and by not trying to win the daily Twitter wars.
With his life-long relationships to prominent Democrats and having worked with Republicans in the past, Joe Biden is different from other Democrats. But this is a different time of extreme polarization brought on by the Republicans.
Like most people who become President, Joe Biden seemed to have an appetite for politics from the beginning. After all, he challenged a seemingly invincible Delaware Senator getting elected for the first time in 1972.
Trump took office as the older chief executive in our history, and now Biden will top him.
On July 4th Biden spoke out against "systemic racism." I'd rather have a "centrist" veering left that a so-called " progressive" moving right.
The most startling thing I read about with Joe Biden is that he spoke at Strom Thurmond's funeral. I cannot imagine any other Democrat doing that.
In the race for the nomination Biden was leery of veering too far left. He was right to do so.
He did want to alienate moderate voters.
He has an intelligent plan for police reform.
People who are able to shelter in place have to learn the risk to people who are not able to shelter in place.
As the effects of COVID increase, more and more of us experience the devastation.
"I'm embarrassed to say, I thought you could defeat hate. You can't hate. It only hides. It crawls under the rocks, and, when given oxygen by any person in authority, it comes roaring back out. And what I realized is, the words of a president, matter. They can take you to war, they can bring peace, they can make the market rise, they can make it fall. But they can also give hate oxygen."
What can a Biden administration actually accomplish? Whatever it is I hope it doesn't make the so-called Left bitter. This will not help achieve progress.
Did Obama not achieve enough progress during his time in office?
In this book Obama he underestimated the Republican potential to compromise.
How much damage will Trump before the new admin comes in?
Richard Ben Cramer's book What It Takes.
His appetite for politics is inexhaustible.
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