Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: On Wednesday, when an unpredictable Donald Trump finally bid goodbye to the White House, without officially handing over the charge to his successor, President-elect Joe Biden, an extra vigilant Pentagon deactivated two of the most important codes the world has ever had.
This subtle act involved the deactivation of two ‘nuclear footballs’ and, more importantly, two sets of nuclear launch codes contained on a credit-card-like “biscuit”. The US President’s aides carry this all-important stuff in a briefcase wherever he goes. It makes him ready 24x7x365 to launch a nuclear attack anywhere in the world within minutes, keeping the Pentagon and the armed forces in the loop.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took oath at the President and Vice President on Wednesday at a solemn ceremony from which the common people were kept at bay due to the pandemic restrictions.
When Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.– Joe Biden—took oath on Wednesday as the 46th US President, he did not have the two briefcases as Trump had not handed them over to him. For the first time since 1945, the US President was without footballs and biscuits, until he took the oath. For hours, America remained without a ‘superpower’ status.
Now Biden has both, but his challenges at home have only begun while those of Trump has receded until the ex-President emerges from his Florida resort to float a new outfit or face impeachment proceedings. In both cases, he will hog the limelight, which Biden may not cherish.
A politician is one who trusts his enemy to do for him what his supporters cannot. And he does everything to keep his enemy off propaganda.
The new President knows this. By announcing that he will be the President of even those who did not vote for him, he has hinted that he would not fall into the trap of Trump’s second impeachment by supporting the Democrats’ move with help of anti-Trump Republicans—not because he does not want to let his predecessor go unpunished but because he wouldn’t like Trump to hit the headlines again which may recoil even on Biden in the future.
Trump’s reported attempt to float his own political outfit—the “Patriot Party”—was like a warning to Biden whose pitch the former President had already tried to dig. No wonder Biden signed as many as 17 fresh orders within hours of taking charge, to undo Trump’s legacy.
Clearly, Biden is under pressure to deliver faster on his promises. He had vowed to fight for the soul of America. Now he faces the steep task of repairing a nation’s soul which is in a bad shape.
The America he has found has daunting tasks at hand: a still-raging COVID-19 pandemic claiming lives and shredding livelihoods, a defiant former President facing a U.S. Senate trial charged with encouraging an attack on his country’s capital, a deeply polarized electorate with millions of voters still believing defeated Trump’s claims of election fraud, and a divided Congress, where gridlock looms as the default and success will come only by compromise, media reported.
The new President will also have to persuade Congress to pass the crucial USD 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that Biden has proposed as a first step in stabilizing the economy, opening schools, and ramping up vaccinations nationwide.
Tired of Trump’s rhetoric, the Americans want to see a functional government deliver, a Biden adviser said.
Historian Douglas Brinkley likened Biden’s inauguration to Abraham Lincoln’s in 1861 when the United States was on the brink of the Civil War and the new president faced assassination threats. “The smell of violence was in the air,” he said.
Trump’s trial in the Senate threatens to derail Biden’s agenda from the very start and delay confirmation votes for his executive branch nominees, reports said.
Biden will have to contend with narrow Democratic majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, which will leave him little maneuvering room.
In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be under pressure to keep the relief package as far-ranging as possible. But any comprehensive measure passing the Senate likely will require the support of Republicans, several of whom have already expressed skepticism over the pandemic’s whopping price tag.
One thing, however, goes to favor Biden: Trump will not have his Twitter account to make mischief from Day One. While no one expects the former president to cease being a political force, his capacity to make life difficult for his successor will be greatly diminished with his account permanently suspended.
But Biden has more on his plate than Trump ever had: Iran, China, India, North Korea, the Middle East, etc.
The contours of his foreign policy will begin to unfold in the next few days.
