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USA TODAY SPECIAL EDITION
The Inauguration of the 46th President
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris rev up their supporters in Wilmington, Delaware, at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention in August. Biden will be the oldest person to serve as president. Harris is the fi rst woman of color elected on a presidential ticket. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Enter Biden and Harris: Agents of Calm To many exhausted voters, it seems, old-style politics didn’t sound so bad after 4 years of chaos David Colton Special to USA TODAY
After four years of chaotic politics, extreme social stress and a crippling pandemic that left too much of America grieving, the majority of voters in 2020 opted for a return to “normalcy,” if such a thing is possible in an angry digital age. The inaugurations of Joe Biden, a two-term vice president and proven politician, and Kamala Harris, a U.S. senator from California who will be the fi rst woman of color in such a high offi ce, signal an attempt to re-establish Washington norms. Their elections with 81 million votes — the most
ever — supplant the personality-driven presidency of Donald Trump, who spent his term challenging the very notions of process and compromise that Biden and Harris represent. For all of Trump’s unproven claims of voter fraud, the outcome was a clear rejection of his undisciplined and divisive approach. “The American people,’’ said Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum matter-of-factly four days after the election, “wanted something calmer, something quieter and something reassuring that Joe Biden was presenting to them.” Late-night comedian Stephen Colbert said the country was exhausted from the bombastic Trump
years, telling Vanity Fair that “if Joe Biden is a pair of khaki pants inside a manila envelope, that would be great.” David Gergen, an adviser to four past presidents (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton), said in an interview that the vote was “a rejection of the forces that seemed to stand for authoritarianism.” “Trump is still very powerful, but there’s some relief, an underlying celebration of freedom and democracy,” Gergen said. “A Gallup Poll shows people are more optimistic about the future than they’ve been in a while, and that’s a good thing.” Still, Biden faces unique challenges, including a
