After four years of permanent spectacle in the White House, Joe Biden is he the solution to forget the tumultuous Donald Trump?
The new American president, invested in his functions Wednesday, January 20, is convinced of this.
He highlights his experience in Washington to bring dignity back to the American executive, wrung out by four years spent in the hands of the former reality TV star.
If the two men have a few things in common - they are both the embodiment of the white male over 70 years old - Joe Biden prefers to see himself as the anti-Trump: a seasoned politician, capable of openness with the opposing party, compassionate and above all to recognize their own mistakes.
From America Blue Collar
While the billionaire is a product of New York's economic elite, the new president comes from a modest background of which he is still proud today.
It's a new day in America.
- Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 20, 2021
Joseph Robinette Biden Junior was born on November 20, 1942 in Scranton, a working-class city in northeastern Pennsylvania, into a family of Irish Catholics.
He attributes his good nature, perseverance and empathy to his origins.
He often cites his father as an example.
A father who experienced fortune and poverty and had to work hard all his life, cleaning ovens or selling used cars, so that his sons lacked nothing.
Joe Biden likes to rehash one of the fatherly maxims throughout meetings: "Son, we do not measure a man by the number of times he is put down, but by his speed to get up".
A motto that young Joe Biden quickly had to apply.
Decades before Donald Trump nicknamed him "Sleepy Joe", he was already being made fun of at school for his stuttering.
A speech impediment that Joe Biden will overcome by training to read poetry aloud in front of his mirror.
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His family moved to Delaware when he was 13.
Joe Biden obtained his law degree there in 1968.
He quickly became a court-appointed lawyer, as the state experienced a series of riots and arrests following the assassination of Martin Luther King.
He was only 29 when he entered politics.
To everyone's surprise, he managed to beat the incumbent Republican senator in 1972 and became the fifth youngest U.S. senator in history.
His joy, however, was short-lived.
Six weeks later, just days before Christmas, his first wife Neilia and baby girl Naomi are killed in a car crash.
Her two young sons, Beau and Hunter, are also injured.
Joe Biden is then ready to give up his seat to stay closer to his children, but his colleagues convince him to continue his mandate.
He finally takes the oath next to his sons' hospital bed.
Because of this sad event, Joe Biden travels back and forth between Washington and his family home in Wilmington, Delaware, every day by train.
A habit that he kept throughout his very long career in the Senate and which earned him another nickname of "Amtrak Joe".
This isn't the only personal tragedy Joe Biden has faced in his life, however.
During his second term as vice president, his son Beau, Delaware's attorney general promised to support the Biden political dynasty, died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
According to the Democratic president, it was he who, on his deathbed, encouraged him to embark on a new race for the White House.
Joe Biden can also count on his second wife Jill, who has campaigned alongside him, as always for 40 years.
A president capable of bipartisan friendships and compromises
Throughout his six terms as a senator, Joe Biden has become a respected figure on Capitol Hill.
Then at the head of the judicial commission, he made a name for himself in 1987 by voting the rejection of President Ronald Reagan's candidate for the Supreme Court, Robert Bork, an ultraconservative.
His ability to make deals with moderate Republicans became his hallmark.
Good for bad: the Delaware senator passes laws, but arouses mistrust on the part of the left wing of the Democratic Party.
In the 1990s, Joe Biden nevertheless used his talents to allow bipartisan compromises on Bill Clinton's flagship projects, in particular the ban on assault weapons and the adoption of the law on violence against women in 1994. .
During the Obama presidency, Joe Biden tried to use his negotiating skills, but the growing intransigence of the Republican camp - due in part to the emergence of the Tea Party - made the mission extremely difficult.
The leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, then keeps his troops under close surveillance saying that the "most important" mission of the Grand Old Party (GOP) was that Barack Obama serve only one term.
Despite this adversity, Joe Biden will play a crucial role in most last-minute budget deals to avoid or end government shutdowns.
On the foreign policy front, Joe Biden was just as important in the executive even though he often lost the arbitrations, as when he asked that the raid against bin Laden be delayed due to lack of complete information.
During his campaign, he promised to reverse Trump's initiatives in this area, starting with his decisions to leave the Paris climate agreement or the Iran nuclear agreement.
He also hopes to reweave ties with traditional allies of the United States, scalded by four years of Trumpism.
A president regularly under fire from critics ...
Donald Trump did not wait for Joe Biden to be nominated by his party to start attacking him.
The Republican went so far as to ask his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Hunter Biden's affairs in Ukraine.
A request that led to his indictment by the House of Representatives - in the hands of the Democrats since 2018 - before his acquittal in the Senate, controlled by the Republicans.
Joe Biden's long years in the Senate have also left angles of attack for his competitors.
During the Democratic primary, he came under heavy criticism for his handling of accusations of sexual harassment that Anita Hill leveled against Supreme Court candidate Clarence Thomas in 1991. While Joe Biden was chairman of the judicial committee of the Senate, the Republicans questioned the credibility of Anita Hill and the latter accuses the now Democratic candidate of not having been able to control his colleagues during the hearing.
If he apologized in 2019, it was not accepted by Anita Hill: "I will be satisfied when I know that there is real change and that there is real accountability."
She has since said she will vote for the Democrat anyway and is willing to work with him on gender issues.
Then Joe Biden's rival in the Democratic primary, Vice-President Kamala Harris had also attacked her on her record, and in particular her former positions against integration policies, from which she herself benefited when younger, in Berkeley.
She cites "busing", a school bus service aimed at promoting social and racial diversity by mixing the inhabitants of different neighborhoods.
In a later interview with CNN, Joe Biden defended himself by saying he was convinced federally mandated buses "were not working" but that he was in favor of local initiatives to fight segregation schools.
A clash in debate which did not prevent him from choosing Kamala Harris as running mate, making her the first black woman to find herself on the "ticket" of a large party.
As for the left wing of the Democratic Party embodied by Bernie Sanders, it often makes Joe Biden a trial for lack of progressivism and radicalism.
The supporters of the former vice-president respond by highlighting the service of their champion and his decades spent fighting for racial justice in the United States and abroad: he had notably spoken of a regime " repulsive and repulsive "about apartheid in South Africa.
They also recall his support for gay marriage during the 2012 campaign, when Barack Obama was getting more cautious.
His affability and bad habit of being tactile has also earned him accusations of inappropriate conduct from several of his assistants.
He has defended his habit of hugging the people he meets, saying he has always seen politics as about "personal connection."
He conceded, however, that he would try to be "more attentive to personal space in the future".
The Covid-19 pandemic forced him to keep his promise.
He is very careful to respect the rules of social distancing and wears a protective mask in all circumstances, while his Republican rival had continued to organize meetings with his face uncovered when the pandemic had already killed more than 200,000 in the country.
... but who gets up every time
He repeated it on several occasions.
For Joe Biden, the 2020 presidential election is a "battle for the soul of the nation".
When asked on CNN in September if he was "the exact opposite" of Donald Trump, he couldn't help but smile: "I hope so."
On Wednesday, he becomes the oldest president ever to be invested.
His third attempt at a presidential election was a good one, after his stinging failures in 1988 and 2008.
In Joe Biden's mythology, the year 1988 remains a dark year.
She was the one who almost ended her political career.
On the one hand, accusations of plagiarism and falsification of diplomas had got the better of his chances of winning the Democratic nomination.
On the other hand, he had to be hospitalized for a double ruptured aneurysm.
It took him seven months to recover before returning to Congress.
In 2008, he ran again, but his fifth place in the Iowa caucus forced him to give up.
Barack Obama will make him his running mate.
The beginning of a "fraternal" relationship between the two men, in their words.
His eight years as vice-president at his side allow him today to claim the political legacy of the first black president in history, whether it is Obamacare on access to healthcare or even the economic plan which saved the American auto industry from the brink of collapse after the 2008 financial crisis.
Proof of the special relationship between the two men, Barack Obama had reserved a surprise for him within a week of their departure from the White House: the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, that he says awarding "to the best vice president America has ever had."
This respect and mutual affection between Biden and Obama enabled him to mobilize the African-American electorate in the primaries, just as his establishment among the blue collar workers had enabled Obama to achieve crucial victories in 2008.
After a more than sluggish start in the race for the Democratic nomination - including a fifth place in the New Hampshire primary which could have aborted his chances - he was able to recover.
Until his resounding victory on "Super Tuesday" in March, where he greeted his supporters with this phrase that reflects his own history: "For those who have been put down, left behind, abandoned, this is your campaign".
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A success paving the way for candidate Biden, who after quickly rallying the support of other moderates, manages to beat his great rival Bernie Sanders, before focusing on his face-to-face with Donald Trump.
At the end of a campaign of incredible aggressiveness, heated debates, and a final sprint that will have reinforced the divide between two Americas at the antipodes, Joe Biden wins the presidential election at the expense of Donald Trump who will never recognize his defeat, without providing proof of the electoral fraud that he denounces.
In any case, the election of the Democrat, who has largely passed the 270 electorate mark needed to become the 46th President of the United States, thanks to the vote in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona, is certified by the elected officials. of the United States Congress, in a stormy climate.
After the violence on Capitol Hill, caused by supporters of his predecessor, despite the invectives of Donald Trump, Joe Biden plays appeasement and still pleads for the rally.
“We'll get through this together,” he promised.
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