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EGACY Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
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Biden’s mission: End the ‘season of darkness’ SUSAN MILLIGAN
After three days of a Democratic National Convention that bemoaned a nation in despair, Joe Biden, on the night of Aug. 19, offered a promise of hope, saying America was a country of “good and decent people” who could unite to overcome the historic crises facing them. “It’s time for us, we the people, to come together. We can overcome this season of darkness in America,” Biden said, accepting “with great honor and humility” the Democratic nomination for president. “This is our moment to make hope and history rhyme… Love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. And light is more powerful than dark. This is our moment. This is our mission. May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation,” Biden said. It was hardly a moment the former vice president could have envisioned even a few years ago. It is his third run for the presidency, having lost in 1988 and 2008, and skipping 2016 as he grieved the death of his son, Beau. He came in fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and fifth in New Hampshire, making his campaign look nearly dead before he scored a landslide win in South Carolina. The pandemic meant Biden had to
deliver the most important address of his career in an audience-less room at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware (though cheering supporters greeted Biden and vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris, along with their spouses, with fireworks afterward, and in cities around the nation people watched outside and applauded). But Biden stared down the camera and delivered a blunt, sometimes emotional address to American voters, his voice rising in anger as he discussed President Donald Trump’s record and choking when he recalled his late son, Beau. Things are awful right now, Biden said, with more than 170,000 Americans dead from the coronavirus, families and small businesses suffering from the economic downturn and civil unrest as the nation grapples with systemic racism. Vote me in, Biden said, and I’ll get to work to fix it and heal the nation. At times, Biden sounded like he was delivering an Oval Office address during a national crisis, ticking off what he would do for economic equality (make the wealthy and large corporations pay their “fair share” of taxes) and the pandemic (providing rapid testing, instituting a national mask mandate and making sure there is adequate, Americanmade protective equipment). With clear agitation over Trump’s proposal to reduce the payroll tax,
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden delivers his acceptance speech on the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 20 in Wilmington, Del. WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES which funds Social Security, Biden declared he would not let that “sacred promise” be abandoned. “I will not let it happen. If I’m your president, we’re going to protect Social Security and Medicare. You have my word,” Biden said in a pledge clearly directed at senior citizens who have been moving away from Trump in polls and who could determine the election in states like Florida and Arizona. Biden made a pitch to working class voters – a key part of Trump’s 2016 base – by recalling the respect for hard work and the dignity of having a job he said his father had
instilled in him as a child. Biden used the opportunity to detail his “Build back Better” plan to create infrastructure, technology and manufacturing jobs. And he could not contain his disdain for Trump, who Biden (who never mentioned the sitting president by name) said cared only about himself. “What we know about this president is if he’s given four more years he will be what he’s been the last four years – a president who takes no responsibility, refuses to
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