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WASHINGTON – When Joe Biden takes the oath on Wednesday outside a wounded U.S. Capitol, he will begin to reshape the office of the presidency itself as he sets out to lead a bitterly divided nation grappling with a devastating pandemic and an insurgency meant to stop its ascent. in power.
Biden had campaigned to rebuke President Donald Trump, a singular figure whose political power was fueled by discord and grievance. The Democrat presented his election as an election aimed at “healing the soul” of the nation and fixing the presidency, restoring the image of the White House as a symbol of stability and credibility.
Big and small, Biden will be looking to change the office he will soon occupy. The inflammatory tweets are out, the wacky political briefings are available. Biden, as much of an institutionalist as Trump has been a disruptor, will seek to change the tone and priorities of the office.
“It’s really about restoring some dignity to the office, choosing truth over lies, unity over division,” Biden said shortly after launching his campaign. “It’s about who we are.”
The White House is about two miles on Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol, where broken windows, heavy fortifications, and hundreds of National Guard personnel are a clear reminder of the power of a president’s words. Trump supporters left a Jan.6 rally for the president near the White House to commit violence on his behalf on Capitol Hill, besieging the Citadel of Democracy and highlighting the Herculean task Biden faces in trying to heal divisions burning of the nation.
Few presidents have accepted the job having given more thought to the mark he wants to make there than Biden. He spent more than 40 years in Washington and captured the White House after two failed attempts. He often praises his former boss, President Barack Obama, as an example of how to lead during a crisis.
“Biden’s primary task will be to restore the symbol of the White House to the world as a place of integrity and good governance. Because right now everything is in disarray, ”said Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian and professor at Rice University. “But Biden is ideally located to do this, his whole life has been spent in Washington and he’s spent eight years watching the work closely.”
The changes will be sweeping, starting with the President’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed the lives of nearly 400,000 Americans. The brutal break with Trump will not come just from federal politics, but from personal conduct.
Trump has flouted the virus, with his staff largely avoiding masks in the maze of cramped West Wing offices while the president staged “big-ticket” events in the White House and on the road. Biden’s team plans to have many staff members work from home; those entering the building will wear masks. Biden has already been vaccinated, which Trump, who contracted the virus last fall, chose not to do despite suggestions it would set an example for the nation.
Biden’s approach to the day-to-day responsibilities of the office will also be a departure from his predecessor. On the one hand, Twitter will not be the main source of information.
Trump’s trail of tweets rocked the capital for four years. All over Washington, phones buzzed with alerts whenever the president used his most powerful political weapon to attack Democrats and keep Republicans in line.
Biden’s tweets tend to be bland press releases and policy details with the occasional “Here’s the deal, folks” for good measure. Allied lawmakers are unlikely to have to pretend they haven’t seen the latest post to avoid commenting on it.
Biden has said he wants Americans to see the president as a role model again; no more foul and demeaning language or racist and divisive rhetoric. His team has promised to restore daily press briefings and the president-elect does not refer to the press as “the enemy of the people”. But it remains to be seen whether he will be as accessible as Trump, who until his post-election hibernation, answered more questions to reporters than any of his recent predecessors.
As Trump filled much of his Cabinet and White House staff with parents, political neophytes and newcomers to government, Biden turned to seasoned hands, bringing in veterans of the Obama administration. and career managers.
Policy documents will be back in fashion and will likely be governed by Cable Chyron.
Trump was primarily indifferent to the machinations of Congress, sometimes appearing to be an observer of his own administration. Biden, a longtime senator who will have Democratic control of both chambers, is able to use the weight of his office to push for an ambitious legislative agenda.
His team will, however, be tested by the uproar at home: a virus that kills more than 4,000 people a day, a slow vaccine delivery program, a deteriorating economy and a row over Trump’s next impeachment trial. .
Biden also has as much work to do to repair the presidency’s image overseas as he does on American shores.
Trump has repositioned the United States in the world, withdrawing the United States from a number of multilateral trade agreements and climate agreements in favor of a more insular foreign policy. His ever-changing beliefs and moods have strained relations with some of the country’s oldest allies, including much of Western Europe.
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, Trump encouraged competition, not cooperation, in vaccine research and development. Trump has also abandoned the traditional role the president plays in shedding light on human rights abuses around the world.
Biden, who spent years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and had a broad foreign policy portfolio as vice president, promised a course correction. He pledged to mend alliances, join the Paris Climate Treaty and the World Health Organization and said he would strengthen U.S. national security by tackling health crises first, economic and political at home.
Offering the White House as a symbol of stability to world capitals won’t be easy for Biden as Trump’s shadow looms.
“He has a structural problem and has to make the United States more reliable. Our stature is reduced and less predictable, ”said Richard Haass, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations. He noted that even after Biden’s victory, the European Union strengthened its ties with China with a new investment treaty.
“Everyone in the world is protecting themselves, they have no idea if Biden is a single term president or what might come after him,” Haass said. “There is a fear around the world that Trump or Trumpism will return in four years.”
– The Associated Press
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