Joe Biden proposed on January 20 to bring together his fellow citizens and be the president of all, we now see that he is facing two major pitfalls: the legacy of Donald Trump and the history of his country.
On January 29, the Pew Research Center, an independent research center, released a survey and analysis highlighting how much President Trump has changed the United States.
Not only the profile of the 45e president is unique in history, but he never bothered to speak for everyone. On the contrary, his 26,000 tweets have exploited or exposed all the cracks in American society.
Extreme polarization
The new president therefore inherits an exacerbated polarization. It will be difficult for him to find a balance when he proposes policies for the environment, taxation, immigration, policy towards China, international partnerships or even the fight to curb the pandemic.
One example among many of the influence of the style and the Trump way? It might make you smile, but 71% of single Democrats say they would refuse to consider a relationship with someone who voted for Donald Trump. In 2017, only 41% of Republicans were found to say the same thing about someone who preferred Hillary Clinton.
President Trump therefore leaves a country particularly divided and the Republican and Democratic positions are diametrically opposed, to the point where a program that relies only on compromises would be stillborn.
Rarely united states
Yet the notion of compromise sums up what the United States is. Joe Biden is aware that the qualifier “United” has often referred only to the name of the country and less to the relationship between states or citizens. As early as 1776, we can only understand American history if we consider the efforts made to achieve compromise. Each of the 13 colonies feared giving too much power to the new central government, a reality that explains the complexity of the division and balance of powers in the Constitution.
You already know that the compromises made at the time of the creation of the country were not sufficient and that a fratricidal war will be waged which must be avoided to limit to the issue of slavery, as the political and economic tensions were important.
Since the end of the Civil War, few politicians or social projects have been truly unifying. Before we made heroes or myths, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy or Ronald Regan all faced fierce resistance.
Can Joe Biden unite his fellow citizens? Rather, we should ask ourselves if he will be able to find, in his camp and among his adversaries, politicians ready to consider compromises. To achieve this would already be an achievement.
“ E pluribus unum (Of many, one) proposed Benjamin Franklin before independence. I sometimes wonder if our neighbors can still do it …