Washington. From a child from a humble family who endured ridicule for his stuttering to become president of the United States. Joe Biden This Sunday he becomes the first octogenarian to occupy the White House after a life embodying the paradigm of the American dream.
About to reach the middle of his term, Biden flees from gerontophobic criticism and strives every day to show that he is fit to lead the Government of the world’s leading power.
He is the most likely Democratic candidate in the 2024 elections, a term that would start at 82 years old. Although he will have to discuss it with his wife, Jill Biden, according to what he said the other day.
Born into a humble family from Pennsylvania that moved to Delaware, Biden is the epitome of the American dream so often told by Hollywood, where anyone can fulfill their dreams if they try hard enough in the land of opportunity.
“His is an inspiring story, that of the working-class boy who goes to university (the Delaware public) and makes his way to the top of the American system,” Stephen J. Farnsworth, doctor of Political Science, tells EFE. and professor at the University of Mary Washington.
He has also had a hard life, marked by family tragedies, such as the death of his first wife and his youngest daughter in a traffic accident, just when he had just been elected senator.
His eldest son also died in 2015, two tragedies that have impregnated his character with a quality that always accompanies him: resilience.
THE THIRD TIME LUCKY
When Biden took office in January 2021, he became the oldest president to take office. He did it on his third try, after running in the 1988 elections and having to withdraw early in the process for having plagiarized a speech.
He also aspired to those of 2008, but withdrew in the primaries before a powerful Barack Obama. However, that experienced senator (representing Delaware for more than 35 years) was chosen by Obama to accompany him, as vice president, in his two terms.
Obama himself summarized in his memoirs the reason for his election: “we couldn’t be more different.” The African American and his short experience in the upper echelons of politics needed someone experienced to reach the white working-class voter, and he found that figure in Biden.
They were eight years in the secondary role, although he came to the fore on numerous occasions due to another of the characteristics that define him: his blunders.
EXPERT IN MESSING THE PATA
With an incontinent tongue, Biden has publicly acknowledged that he suffers to control his words: “I never say anything I don’t mean, and sometimes I say things I feel I shouldn’t say.”
“Communication is not its greatest strength, although some of the criticism is unfair and a bit hostile, but that is the nature of politics,” Farnsworth says.
The political scientist also recalls that Biden stuttered as a child. Following the success of the film “The King’s Speech” (2010), which touched him deeply, Biden himself publicly recounted that this condition caused him numerous ridicule in his childhood.
He left behind the nickname “Joe Impedimenta” with tricks such as “putting cadence when speaking.” That’s why he spent so much time reading poetry, Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Butler Yeats.
For history there are phrases like the one he said to Obama at the ceremony for the enactment of the health reform law (the “Obamacare”): “This is a big fucking deal” (“This is something of a motherfucker”).
Or notable oversights such as when he confused his sister with his wife or when, more recently, he called a congresswoman who had been deceased for weeks at a public event.
THE HEALER
After the incendiary years of the Donald Trump Administration, Biden has tried to have a Consensus Presidency, despite the economic crisis.
Upon his arrival, with the recent storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters, he was seen as the healer of a sharply divided and tense country. The division has not decreased, although the aggressiveness in the speeches has.
In these two years of government, Biden has opted for a foreign policy of rapprochement with traditional allies. He returned the US to the Paris Agreement, resumed negotiations with Iran, broke all rapprochement with Pyonyang and was blunt against Vladimir Putin, with substantial aid to Ukraine.
The economy has been his main Achilles heel, with runaway inflation dragging down his popularity. To control it, he enacted an ambitious climate law, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act.
He does boast of the robustness of the labor market and of being the president who has created the most jobs.
After reaching the White House and after a failed Trump policy to end the pandemic, the Biden government promulgated the American Rescue Plan, which included an intense vaccination campaign. A few weeks ago, the president considered the pandemic to be over.
He also pushed through with the support of Congress an ambitious infrastructure plan.
Immigration continues to be one of its pending causes because, although it has left behind the intolerance of Trump and his famous wall, it has not been encouraged to approach the collective’s demands for the moment.
Despite his advanced age, who he has successfully approached are young people, as pointed out by the expert in Public Policy Meena Bose, a professor at Hofstra University.
“His success has been to focus on issues that matter to young people, who have a very high electoral participation, showing that he understands their problems,” the expert points out to EFE, citing as examples his fight to protect abortion or the cancellation of the student debt.
By: Paula Escalada Medrano
