![]() Capitol, the same place where, two weeks earlier, a mob of Trump fanatics, conspiracy theorists, and violent extremists had attacked the police and forced their way inside the Capitol carrying Confederate flags, brandishing makeshift weapons, and dressed in clothes that said “Camp Auschwitz” and “Q,” for the delusional theory QAnon. You’re there because on some level you know you might see someone get killed.”Īt just past noon on Wednesday, January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden stepped up to the microphone to deliver his inaugural address as the 46th president of the United States. Joe Biden: the guy who once said nice things about segregationists? Joe Biden: the guy who once argued against school desegregation and forced busing? What chance did a relic like Biden have against competition this fierce? As one political journalist wrote in the fall of 2019, when it looked like Scranton Joe stood no chance of winning the nomination, “Watching Biden can feel like being at the rodeo. ![]() In a field of two dozen younger and more energetic candidates, Biden looked and sounded like a holdover from a bygone era, an anachronism who was jarringly out of sync with the Democratic Party in the year 2020. I listened as Biden laced into President Trump for his dangerous denial about the severity of the virus, punctuating his broadside with a joke: “The virus is not impressed by his tweets.” A few people laughed. This is a fight for the soul of the country…Ī few weeks later, the coronavirus pandemic would shut down the country. And then he launched into his stump speech, the same stump speech he’d given since the day he entered the race and more or less the same speech he would give for the remainder of the race. “Well, I’m not your video, but I’m OK,” Biden quipped. The campaign’s hype video wouldn’t play because of tech issues, and so the candidate emerged. “Our democracy is in a very fragile place,” a man named Leo Frazier told me. When I interviewed those few South Carolinians who had come out to hear from Biden, they told me they supported him in the crowded and vibrant Democratic primary field because he would bring back “a sense of normalcy again” and would “maybe get some stuff done in the Senate.” There was no passion behind these statements but rather a cold-eyed pragmatism about where the country stood and what was at stake in the election. There were nearly as many members of the media in attendance as there were actual attendees. Zion Enrichment Center, the atmosphere funereal. This was about a year ago, and he was just a candidate then, a beloved former vice president, darling of The Onion, and twice-failed presidential contender who, in the twilight of his career, was making one last go of it. ![]() ![]() WASHINGTON - I pulled up to the small gymnasium in the town of Sumter, South Carolina, to take the measure of Joe Biden. ![]()
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