Can Biden deliver on ‘unity’? Does America really want it?

From the start, Joe Biden has framed his candidacy around the concept of unity. In his campaign kickoff speech last year, he accused President Donald Trump of fanning, rather than working to bridge, partisan and racial divides – evoking a nation that, in his view, was yearning to come together.

“The country is sick of the division. They’re sick of the fighting,” the former vice president said in Philadelphia.

“Our Constitution doesn’t begin with the phrase ‘We the Democrats,’ ‘We the Republicans,’” he said. “We are all in this together. We need to remember that today, I think more than any time in my career.” 

Mr. Biden’s decisive primary victories earlier this spring seemed to affirm that view. But as the campaign now moves into the general election phase – after a stretch of tumultuous events nearly unprecedented in modern U.S. history – the task of unifying the nation has never seemed more daunting.

The past three months