Photo courtesy of Joe Biden for President
After three nights of positive, uplifting moments from familiar old friends and impressive new ones, presidential nominee Joe Biden’s crisp, confident speech closed the deal. Biden, simply by being a decent, competent American politician, is once again the candidate of hope and change. Donald Trump’s demeaning caricature of Biden as a doddering, old fool struggling with dementia set up the Democratic nominee perfectly. Now every urgent, intelligent Biden speech is even more effective.
“The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long,” Biden told the nation. “Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division. Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst. I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness.”
Biden closed his speech as Trump would never dare—by paraphrasing the Irish poet Seamus Heaney and using the L word. “This is our moment to make hope and history rhyme,” Biden said. “With passion and purpose, let us begin—you and I together, one nation under God—united in our love for America and united in our love for each other. For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. Light is more powerful than dark.”
That sums up what makes America today under Trump almost completely unrecognizable from the country President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden passed on just four years ago. Trump’s failure to protect American lives in a deadly pandemic collapsed the successful U.S. economy he inherited destroying 30 million American jobs so far.
Trump’s Inept Presidency
The Democratic convention reminded Americans of the last, best presidency they had. The Obama-Biden administration rescued America from the second worst economic disaster in U.S. history. Trump’s inept presidency plunged us into an even worse economic disaster with no end in sight. Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris are now leading a new campaign for hope and change.
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Two of the convention’s best moments came from the beautiful American couple we were proud to have in our White House. The speeches of Barack and Michelle Obama also demonstrated the difference between honest, fact-based criticism and petty name-calling. President Obama said he didn’t expect his successor to embrace his policies, but he hoped Trump would feel the weight of the presidency and some reverence for democracy. But he never did.
“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” Obama said. “And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”
Devastating Consequences
Michelle also cited the devastating consequences of Trump’s inability to perform the duties of the presidency. “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is.”
That last phrase, of course, is the direct quote Trump uses repeatedly to callously dismiss the U.S. having the worst death toll in the world from the coronavirus as if there were nothing a president could do to protect American lives. That’s why he never tried.
Beyond the big names, some of the most moving Biden endorsements came from ordinary people. Thirteen-year-old Brayden Harrington courageously addressed a national audience demonstrating tricks Biden taught him from his own experience of overcoming a childhood stutter. “I’m just a regular kid, and in a short amount of time Joe Biden made me more confident about something that’s bothered me my whole life.”
The scaled-back, virtual Democratic convention disappointed the host city of Milwaukee, but the televised format was terrific. It focused on real stories affecting real people all over the country. The roll call became a rapid-fire tour of the beauty of America as well as much of its human drama. The best thing the format did for politicians was keep their speeches short and to the point. We kept watching because we never knew what might come next. An 11-year-old writing to Trump about how deporting her mother to Mexico had devastated their family. A daughter still angry her father voted for Trump and believed in him enough to sing with friends at a karaoke bar, fatally contracting COVID-19. “My dad was a healthy 65-year-old. His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump.”
That what happens when the president of the United States considers his own re-election more important than protecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the livelihoods of tens of millions of American families. It is what it is.
To read more Taking Liberties columns by Joel McNally, click here.
To read more about the upcoming presidential election, click here.
