The United States: Nation that Needs to be Rebuilt Itself, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris

By Jensen Cox

Once more, the world is set to alter. Americans picked the 46th president of the United States in one of the most closely contested elections in history at the conclusion of a year marked by unfathomable occurrences. The two new faces of the White House are Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Tens of millions of people's hopes were sparked by their triumph, but they still face a difficult task. It will be intriguing to see how they attempt to lead the United States out of its most precarious situation in recent memory. Knowing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' White House will look like best comes from understanding who they are and what they have accomplished thus far. Because politics and power don't change people: they reveal them for who they are. Jensen Cox then draws a portrait of the new presidency by going through the extraordinary biographies of the two protagonists, and the moments that have marked their lives. From the 1972 election campaign, with which Joe Biden became the youngest United States senator, to the vice presidency alongside Barack Obama, from Kamala Harris' childhood in the West Coast African American ghettos to her career as a lawyer and prosecutor that l 'led her to write her name in American history even before she became the first woman, first person of color, and first Indian-American vice president of the United States of America. The victories, the defeats, the mistakes tell us something not only about the type of president and vice president who will rule the greatest world power, but also of the lessons they have learned throughout their lives, of how they have faced adversaries and obstacles. Above all, those victories, defeats and mistakes are representative "of a community that goes far beyond their people". Because "in their qualities and their limits, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris resemble America".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miller
• Release date: May 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223826842

Jensen Cox

Jensen Cox is an esteemed author renowned for his profound insights and meticulous research in the fields of history and business. With an exceptional ability to weave captivating narratives and shed light on complex subjects, Jensen has established himself as a trusted authority in both disciplines. Through his thought-provoking works, he has consistently delivered invaluable knowledge and enriched the understanding of readers around the world.

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The book

The world is about to change, again. At the end of a year upended by unimaginable events, Americans have chosen the 46th president of the United States in one of the most contested elections in history. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the new face of the White House. Their victory catalysed the hopes of tens of millions of people, but the challenge ahead of them is not simple: it will be interesting to observe how they will try to ferry the United States out of the most delicate moment in recent history. The best way to know what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' White House will be like is to know who they are and what they have done so far. Because politics and power don't change people: they reveal them for who they are. Jensen Cox then draws a portrait of the new presidency by going through the extraordinary biographies of the two protagonists, and the moments that have marked their lives. From the 1972 election campaign, with which Joe Biden became the youngest United States senator, to the vice presidency alongside Barack Obama, from Kamala Harris' childhood in the West Coast African American ghettos to her career as a lawyer and prosecutor that l 'led her to write her name in American history even before she became the first woman, first person of color, and first Indian-American vice president of the United States of America. The victories, the defeats, the mistakes tell us something not only about the kind of president and vice president who will rule the world's greatest power, but also about the lessons they have learned in their lives, how they have faced adversaries and obstacles. Above all, those victories, defeats and mistakes are representative of a community that goes far beyond their people. Because in their qualities and their limits, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris resemble America.

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I

The sacrificial lamb could rewrite history

Nordy Hoffman's face resembled a block of wood that a sculptor had given no more than five or six chisel strokes. The jelly-covered hair was pulled back, as if anchored somewhere behind the nape of the neck; eyebrows naturally angled towards the center of the face. Even sitting, he looked enormous, and it wasn't just his size: he probably looked angry while he slept. Hoffman had been a great football player in his college days, then worked his way up the Democratic bureaucracy and in 1972 was the surly head of the committee that handled the party's nominations for the Senate. Among other things, his job involved deciding how much money to get from Washington to local party candidates, based on their needs but above all on their chances of winning.

I'm running for Senate in Delaware, said the boy sitting across the desk after a couple of pleasantries. He had brought his older brother with him, who silently looked from face to face. Look, we don't have any money to waste here, Hoffman replied with a snort, and for twenty minutes he bombarded him with questions. Where were you born? What do you think about the war in Vietnam? What do your parents do? What do you think about racial segregation? Where did you graduate? Should we try or not your peers who fled abroad in order not to go to war? What does your wife do? The questions came without even waiting for the boy to complete the answers, and as the minutes passed they became more and more provocative. But what makes you think you can win? The only reason the boy was able to run, in fact, was that nobody wanted to play the sacrificial lamb: the seat in question was firmly in the hands of Caleb Boggs of the Republican Party, beloved and highly decorated war hero, former judge, three times Congressman, twice Governor, twice Senator and looking for a third term. "And people should vote for you ?"

Boggs wanted to retire. He had become a lawyer shortly before leaving for World War II, during which he had collected medals and ailments fighting in Normandy, the Rhineland and the Ardennes. Then he returned to Delaware, where he was born, and for thirty years the inhabitants of the state - few: and it was said that he knew them all - elected him to whatever candidate he ran for. He was considered a gentleman and was the most popular politician in Delaware, but more than a politician he was an icon, a familiar figure: a symbol. A few months earlier he had informed the party of his intention to leave politics, but the close competition to take his place among the Republicans had immediately provoked quarrels and controversies. Also, without Boggs on the ballots the Democrats would have nominated some big shot to win: with Boggs they wouldn't have even tried. At one point President Richard Nixon himself had flown to Delaware to invite Boggs to run for one last term, for the good of the party, and he had accepted, out of a sense of duty.

We don't have all the money in the world here, I definitely don't have it, snapped Hoffman. It wasn't the first time the boy had heard such a thing. He was born in Scranton, an industrial city in Pennsylvania, but a series of bad luck and bad choices had left his family in serious financial difficulties and had forced them to move to Wilmington, Delaware, where his father had found work as a salesman of used cars. The boy had graduated from a not particularly prestigious college; he too was good at football, though not as good as Hoffman. He had approached politics in college, but he considered himself an independent: he couldn't stand the Democratic Party because in the South it defended racial segregation, he couldn't stand the Republican Party because he thought Nixon was a crook and the Vietnam war was nonsense. In the end, thanks to the political climate of Delaware, very different from that of Alabama or Mississippi, the second motivation was stronger than the first.

Delaware is a small triangular state between Philadelphia and Baltimore in the northwestern United States. It is nicknamed First State, because it was the first to ratify the American Constitution, and is known for having such an efficient and business-friendly administrative and tax system that many of the largest companies in the world have chosen it to establish their headquarters there legal. The part of the state economy that is not dominated by insurance, banks and finance is taken by chemistry: pharmaceutical industries, industrial chemicals, plastics. It is the state of DuPont, the largest chemical company in the world.

The boy went on to tell Hoffman how he could beat Boggs, how he could convince voters to choose a new face, how he intended to campaign respectfully and without insults. The money we'd give you is money we can give to someone who can actually win, you understand that? Hoffman pressed him for the umpteenth time, with the air of one who was already thinking about the next appointment. Why should we waste them? Half an hour had passed, and the boy decided he had enough. Suddenly he changed his tone, slapped his hands on his thighs and stood up and said: «Look, you know what? I don't have time to waste on your bullshit.' His brother got up too, but more slowly, surprised by the new pace of the conversation. The boy held out his right hand, to take his leave, with his torso already half turned towards the door. Hoffman took his hand and didn't let go. We will do our part, Senator. The boy was genuinely blown away. Hoffman let go of his hand and pulled a couple of papers and a check out of a drawer. I wanted to see if you had character. The papers contained the result of a poll commissioned by the party which saw the boy at a disadvantage but not doomed. "I had heard of you. But I wanted to know if this Joe Biden would give up the money to send me to hell.

In the previous weeks, Joe Biden had already expressed impatience with one of the most thankless responsibilities for an American politician in the electoral campaign, especially if it is his first candidacy, if he is practically unknown and has no hope of winning: asking around for money. Some time ago, his brother Jimmy had managed to get a promise of a $5,000 donation from the head of a train drivers' union, but he wanted to talk to the candidate before writing the check. Once the phone call had been arranged, the man asked Biden how he would vote on the law that had authorized the use of supersonic aircraft, such as the Concorde, the year before. Oh, and while he was at it, he also wanted to know if he would authorize the bailout of the famous aerospace company Lockheed. The subtext was clear: if you're not going to vote like we say, forget the check. The young Biden fulminated him: «Bill... can I call you Bill? Take your $5,000 and stick it up your ass!" His brother grabbed the receiver before Biden slammed it on the phone, and tried to patch it up. Later, as his candidacy began to gain momentum, Biden was invited to a cocktail party with thirteen wealthy local businessmen interested in getting to know him better, eventually returning home penniless.

Joe Biden has long been considered a warm-hearted but talkative politician, prone to unfortunate outings, capable of saying what should never be said, making long digressions even on the most formal of occasions, and getting into trouble with embarrassing verbal missteps. The American press has often described him as a gaffe machine, and many in the White House remember with a mixture of affection and impatience his tendency to intervene during every meeting and shift the subject of discussion with a long anecdote about his childhood or about one of the politicians involved in the matter.

Biden is aware of both his character and his reputation, and over the years he has tried to laugh it off and present both as signs of his authenticity. It happened that during a public meeting at the White House the microphone from which he was speaking stopped working and he reacted with comedian promptness by feigning a disconsolate expression: They do it to me all the time. But words have been a common thread in his life, and for a long time they made him suffer from a problem very far from the talkativeness of his adult life: Joe Biden is a stutterer. For years he has experienced the little daily cruelties to which people who stutter are exposed, especially when young. As a child in Scranton, one of the nun teachers nicknamed him Bye Bye Blackbird, after a song title, due to his difficulty pronouncing his last name, Bbb-biden. His peers called him Bu-bu-Biden or Joe Impedimenta, a word they had picked up in a Latin lesson; or Dash again, because his stuttering reminded me of the dot-dash sequence in Morse code. His parents tried to send him to a speech therapist, but without great results: and even when things seemed to be going better, the stuttering re-emerged in moments of tension, for example in class before a question.

In time, Biden got out of it, and he basically did it himself. He began practicing at home for hours, reading and speaking in front of the mirror. He developed some techniques to become more fluent: he learned a cadence, a rhythm, to build tracks to keep the words anchored to. Every morning he would rehearse conversations he thought he would have later in the day, memorize sentences he should have read in school, or jot down signs on the pages that reminded him when to stop, when to emphasize a word, when to slow down for a breath, where to put the accents. It's something he still does today. Above all, the young Biden began to take advantage of every possible opportunity to speak in public: it was the context that put him in the most difficulty, but also the one that fascinated him the most. Neighborhood assemblies, student association meetings, movements, trade unions, film clubs, any pretext was good: when questions and speeches were asked, Biden forced himself to raise his hand and try to speak. Every time someone teased him. It got a little better each time.

Even today it still happens from time to time that Joe Biden stumbles over words, especially when he is tired or nervous, but over time his struggle with stuttering has become one of the many ways in which he has shown and told who he is: and not just why overcome this impediment strengthened his character. For decades, at the end of every rally and public meeting, Biden has happened to be approached by a stutterer looking for advice or an example to follow, often a boy or a girl accompanied by their parents. And for decades Biden stopped to talk to each of them, making appointments for a chat or providing them with his private phone number. Over the years, hundreds of stuttering people around the United States have obtained their own personal anecdote with Joe Biden: the journalists who followed him during his two terms in the vice presidency say that in any American city Air Force Two landed, waiting for him on the tarmac were often a stuttering person or two with whom Biden had kept in touch, and whom he had made an appointment with by passing their names to his escort.

Joe Biden is the nicest person I've ever met in politics, said Lindsey Graham, a Republican Party senator and a great supporter of Donald Trump a few years ago. We disagree on a lot of things, but if you don't admire Joe Biden as a person, something is definitely wrong with you. Another big shot of the Republican Party, Paul Ryan, called him one who keeps his word, but above all a good person, a good guy. The list could go on and on, even deciding to take into consideration only the opinions of Joe Biden's opponents in the last fifty years.

In an era in which politics is dominated by cynicism and aggressiveness as the only possible means of self-affirmation, to the point of having given an alibi to malice by crippling the word goodness in the so-called do-gooders, the personal story of the The forty-sixth president of the United States - full of twists, huge fortunes, trivial mistakes and unspeakable pains - overturns all beliefs about the requirements necessary for a successful political leadership in the 21st century. Joe Biden is not an extremist or a demagogue. He is not young nor can he be considered anti-establishment, on the contrary: Joe Biden is the ruling class. In a political moment that devalues experience and competence as unattractive and losing arguments, and rewards the most unscrupulous and bellicose communication, Biden's words are always water and never petrol, and take into account the complexity of reality. Those who consider him boring, even on the left, do not notice how much the most revolutionary feature of his political parable is exactly this, in an era of flamboyant political leadership that barely lasts the space of an electoral cycle. The message with which he won the 2020 presidential elections is anti-cyclical: instead of widening conflicts, dividing society into good and bad, Biden has set himself the unfashionable goal of mending the fractures, indicating in the civilization of public discourse, in tolerance and compromises the only possible path to progress.

In light of all this, it is not irrelevant that his election to the presidency took place during the most titanic crisis of the last century, at a time that theoretically should have rewarded once more radical and angry messages: the coronavirus pandemic, the most devastating economic crisis since that of 1929, the destructive climate emergency and the perpetual scandal of systemic racism. When he entered the White House as vice president in January 2009, Joe Biden found himself faced with the colossal consequences of the Great Recession, and he had a history-book traveling companion with him: Barack Obama, the first black president. Now that he is president he faces an even higher mountain, but he has again an extraordinary ally: Kamala Harris, the first woman and the first black person ever elected to the vice presidency. Their victory catalysed the hopes of tens of millions of people, garnering the most votes ever in a US presidential election. It will undoubtedly be interesting to observe how Biden and Harris will try to ferry the United States out of the most delicate moment in