Name: Joe Biden dreams of a healing nation. For now, a dream is about all he’s got | The Star
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Joe Biden dreams of a healing nation. For now, a dream is about all he’s got | The Star

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≡SectionsCity PagesAnalysisByOn the eve of the American Thanksgiving holiday, President-elect Joe Biden addressed the nation by livestream Wednesday from a hall in Wilmington, Delaware.“On this Thanksgiving, in anticipation of all the Thanksgivings to come, let’s dream again,” he said. Become a subscriber today!Cancel anytime.On the eve of the American Thanksgiving holiday, President-elect Joe Biden addressed the nation by livestream Wednesday from a hall in Wilmington, Delaware.“On this Thanksgiving, in anticipation of all the Thanksgivings to come, let’s dream again,” he said. Only $1 a week for 6 monthsSpecial offer just for you. Unlimited access.On the eve of the American Thanksgiving holiday, President-elect Joe Biden addressed the nation by livestream Wednesday from a hall in Wilmington, Delaware.“On this Thanksgiving, in anticipation of all the Thanksgivings to come, let’s dream again,” he said.If, after what many have experienced as the ongoing nightmare of 2020 thus far in the U.S., some still maintain the capacity to dream, he might have been suggesting, that itself may be occasion for thanks.Article Continued BelowA global pandemic that’s taken more than 260,000 U.S. lives and again spreads virtually unchecked across the country. A recession that cost tens of thousands of jobs and closed countless businesses. Episodes of police brutality inspiring civil unrest, rioting, looting. An election that saw a losing president attempting to undermine faith in the U.S. election system itself.Tough times. Biden began, then, by saying the spirit of the holiday isn’t a celebration of having it easy. “The first national day of Thanksgiving, authorized by the continental Congress, took place on December 18, 1777. It was celebrated by Gen. George Washington and his troops at Gulph Mills on the way to Valley Forge. It took place under harsh conditions and deprivations — lacking food, clothing, shelter. They were preparing to ride out a long, hard winter,” Biden said.He quoted from the plaque that marks that occasion. “This Thanksgiving, in spite of the suffering, showed the reverence and character that was forging the soul of a nation.”He said, “Now, we find ourselves again facing a long, hard winter.”Article Continued BelowBiden acknowledged that the conditions of this year’s holiday were an occasion of suffering for many. It may not be obvious to most Canadians that in the U.S., Thanksgiving may be the most-observed family-gathering day of the year — Christmas is a bigger shopping and Hollywood holiday, but going home to share a meal on the four-day Thanksgiving weekend is the biggest travel occasion of the year.Click to expandPublic health authorities, and Biden, have asked people to forgo that sacred civic ritual this year because of the pandemic’s resurgence. Many Republicans have positioned defying such requests as acts of patriotism — “Come and take it,” Donald Trump ally Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted above an image of a turkey. Trump, in his own presidential Thanksgiving proclamation, wrote “I encourage all Americans to gather, in homes, and in places of worship, to offer a prayer of thanks to God for our many blessings.”Biden tried to evoke the spirit of Churchillian patriotism in sacrifice in response. “We owe it to one another. It’s literally our patriotic duty to one another,” he said. While promising to use every power at his disposal when he takes office to eliminate the virus, he said government can’t do it alone. Wearing a mask, skipping family gatherings this holiday season, social distancing. “Every decision we make matters. Every decision we make can save lives.”And he promised that it would be worth it, because the efforts would mean the nightmare would end. “America is not going to lose this war,” he said. “This will not last forever.”There remained, he said, so much to be grateful for in the U.S. “So much to dream on.”Biden invoked his country’s history of overcoming struggle to live up to the “aspiration” of the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence: slavery, civil war, the oppression of women and racial minorities, world wars, the prospect of nuclear annihilation. That history of drawing on a “capacity for greatness, and reservoirs of goodness” to overcome struggle, he suggested, should inspire the confidence to face current hardships. He said the U.S. “in our finest hours” was a nation “not of adversaries, but of neighbours.”“What was it that brought the reality of America into closer alignment with its promise of equality, justice, and prosperity? It sounds corny, but it was love. Plain and simple. Love of country and love for one another.”Biden, a man whose success this year has often been attributed to his bland centrism — even as Trump tried to brand him the front for “radical” leftism — invoked the “radical” message of Jesus in the golden rule. “To love our neighbour as ourselves is a radical act,” he said. “Yet it is what we are called to do.”It did sound corny. And in the political climate that has ruled the past four years or longer in the U.S. — in which the current president came into office talking about “American carnage” and is leaving it tweeting about being “at war” against a vast conspiracy — it did sound radical. It sounded like he was dreaming.He said so himself. “Americans dream big,” he said. “And, as hard as it may seem this Thanksgiving, we are going to dream big again.”In the weeks since it became clear he was going to be the next president, Biden has displayed a businesslike, practical approach to preparing to govern — quietly announcing appointments he plans to make, rolling out policy priorities, meeting with experts on the pandemic and foreign policy and economic conditions. That itself was a contrast with the current president’s approach to government as reality-TV chaos mongering.On the occasion of the U.S. holiday devoted to reflecting on blessings and expressing gratitude, Biden aimed for something more sentimental, a song of wishful thinking. He is not the most talented singer to try to carry such a tune. But it was certainly also a stark contrast to what’s become normal in American politics.“If we care for one another — if we open our arms rather than brandish our fists — we can, with God’s help, heal,” he said. “And I give thanks now: for you and for the trust you have placed in me. Together, we will lift our voices in the coming months and years, and our song shall be of lives saved, breaches repaired, and a nation made whole.”To which supporters and detractors alike might both respond: dream on.Read more about:© Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. 1996 - 2022

≡SectionsCity PagesAnalysisByOn the eve of the American Thanksgiving holiday, President-elect Joe Biden addressed the nation by livestream Wednesday from a hall in Wilmington, Delaware.“On this Thanksgiving, in anticipation of all the Thanksgivings to come, let’s dream again,” he said. Become a subscriber today!Cancel anytime.On the eve of the American Thanksgiving holiday, President-elect Joe Biden addressed the nation by livestream Wednesday from a hall in Wilmington, Delaware.“On this Thanksgiving, in anticipation of all the Thanksgivings to come, let’s dream again,” he said. Only $1 a...

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Joe Biden dreams of a healing nation. For now, a dream is about all he’s got | The Star

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