Jill Biden, the teacher who wants to continue teaching even as first lady

WASHINGTON (AFP) .- For months Jill biden pass without a break United States with a message: only Joe Biden could unite a country divided in the extreme, if he got to the White House, which he will eventually do, as confirmed today. His energy and optimistic message are appreciated by Democratic voters, but also by some Republicans.

With vigor often greater than that of her husband, who has long limited his electoral travel, the 69-year-old professor visited voters in key states likely to lean to the Democratic side on November 3.

He called on Americans, “Democrats and Republicans, rural and urban” to unite to overcome political divisions, overcome the pandemic and the economic crisis.

“We don’t agree on everything, it’s not necessary, we can still love and respect each others ”, he asserted, in a speech at the antipodes of the diatribes of Donald trump.

It also featured a more intimate image of Joe Biden, whose life was struck by “unimaginable tragedies.”

Jill Biden relates in particular how the former vice president of Barack obama had the strength to resume his activities at the White House, just days after the death of his son Beautiful of brain cancer in 2015.

“He learned to heal a broken family, and in the same way a nation is healed, with love, understanding, little acts of kindness, courage and unshakeable hope,” he said, referring to the crises that have befallen them. United States due to the pandemic. and the tensions that build after four years of government by the Republican magnate.

Joe and Jill Biden married in 1977, five years after a first tragedy, when the senator’s first wife and their young daughter were killed in a car crash.

Still children, their two surviving sons, Beau and Hunter, had suggested to their father to marry Jill, recalls Joe Biden in his memoirs, where he wrote: “She gave me back my life”.

“He’s the strongest person I know,” he said recently in a video at the Democratic convention in August.

21st century first lady

Jill Biden interrupted her career when she had her daughter, Ashley, in 1981, then returned to school to earn a doctorate in education.

He still teaches at a university in northern Virginia, near Washington, where she wants to continue working even if her husband becomes president.

Besides Hillary Clinton, who served briefly as a senator after her husband’s administration, Jill Biden would be the first lady to pursue her professional career.

This “will forever change the expectations and the limits” of the role, says Kate Andersen Brower, author of a book on the history of American first ladies, stressing that “most American women have to balance professional and family life” . .

Jill Biden had been involved in her husband’s campaign since the primaries. The Democratic candidate has made a habit of presenting himself as “Jill Biden’s husband”.

Solidly alongside her husband, she denounced the “slander” launched by Trump to “distract” in connection with the recent corruption charges against Joe and Hunter, the youngest son involved in the controversy over their affairs in China and Ukraine when his father was number two for Barack Obama.

However, she remained discreet in the face of a woman, Tara Reade, accused of rape in the 1990s, which Joe Biden categorically denied.

The senator for three decades and vice-president for eight years (2009-2017) was also denounced for having a very “tactile” relationship with women, who complained of very invasive gestures. Jill Biden claims to see only the innocent behavior of her husband, who, for his part, admitted to having “learned” from the statements of these women who considered their private space invaded.