7 takeaways from Joe Biden’s first Covid-19 speech

7 takeaways from Joe Biden’s first Covid-19 speech

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My takeaways from Biden’s speech, which lasted just over 20 minutes, are below. They are in no other order than the order in which I wrote them down while I was watching the talk.

1. Donald Trump dug the hole: Biden did not mention his predecessor by name, but especially in the early moments of his speech, it was very clear that the current president lay the blame for the country’s fight with the coronavirus pandemic at the feet of the last president. “A year ago we were hit with a virus that went silent and spread unnoticed, denials for days, weeks and then months,” Biden said at one point. “It led to more deaths, more infections, more stress and more loneliness.” At another point, Biden takes off his mask and marvels at the fact that it has been turned into a political statement.

2. The return of empathyy: Biden made a single gesture in the speech demonstrating the empathy he works with vis a vis the lives lost by this pandemic. He pulls out a card from his jacket pocket – which he says he keeps with him everywhere he goes – and reads off the exact, recent number of Americans who died from the coronavirus. (The number is over 527,000.) Yes, Biden did this, of course, for a dramatic effect. But it worked. And it has the idea that it is a leader who has taken those who died of the pandemic to heart – literally. It also provided a non-subtle contrast to Trump’s open politicization of the virus and those who conceded to it.

3. At war with the virus: In the language he chose – and the comparisons he struck – Biden clearly wanted Americans to understand that we were at war with Covid-19. He said the country was on a ‘war basis’. He noted that Covid-19 has now killed more Americans than the First, Second World War and the Vietnam War combined. Even in the quote from ‘Farewell to Arms’ – ‘many are strong in the broken places’ – Biden invokes Ernest Hemingway’s novel about the First World War. The message was clear: it is not an enemy as the United States is used to. fight. But it is nonetheless an enemy, and the need for sacrifice and unity is just as great as when America fought the Ashes.

4. Truth matters: Again, according to no. 1, Trump was not mentioned by name in this speech, but was everyone about it. “We know what we need to do to defeat this virus; tell the truth, follow science, work together,” Biden said at one point, a direct rebuke to Trump’s rejection of facts and science about the coronavirus during the course of 2020 campaign. “You owe nothing less than the truth,” Biden said at another point. And even while sounding a mostly optimistic note about returning to normal – more on this below – Biden was open and transparent that things could go sideways, that the variants of the virus are there, and that if the right mitigation practices are not followed not we can have another boom.

5. UNIT: In the most remarkable moment of the night, the President of the United States stared into the camera lens and said to the American people, ‘I need you.’ Then he said again, “I need you.” (The Scott Wilson of the Washington Post calls it the “most memorable and unusual appeal in the pronouncement of the presidential speech.”) Biden repeatedly spoke in the speech about the power of the “us” to overcome Covid-19. He talked about the need to find a ‘common goal’. He said that “beating this virus and getting it back to normal depends on national unity.” And that “I need every American to do their part.” America’s idea of ​​doing so stands in stark contrast to the Trump presidency, in which the 45th president sought to emphasize the coronavirus after immigration to race that separates us rather than our common humanity. “This is the United States of America and there is nothing we can not do if we do it together,” Biden said during the closing moments of his speech.
Circle 4 July: Biden said that on Independence Day there is a good chance … that you will be able to get together and keep a hob or a braai in your backyard. ‘I never hung out with a few friends in my backyard on a likely sweltering summer day in DC! As Craig Melvin of NBC noted: “Well, it seems like July 4th, Independence Day, is taking on new meaning. It’s a marker now.” That’s exactly right. July 4 is now the day – or around the day – when the country will begin to return to normal appearance, at least according to Biden. Now he has to make the promise good or let the date hang around his neck like a political anchor – a la Trump’s ridiculous promise that we would start normal again on Easter Sunday 2020.
7. “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best things”: That line – spoken by Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) with Red (Morgan Freeman) in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, kept popping into my head throughout my speech. (Maybe it’s because “Shawshank” tends to be on Twitter at the same time as Biden was speaking!) Biden used his speech, yes, to describe the losses we suffered – singly and collectively – from Covid-19. But he also pointed to a hopeful future that was within our reach as long as we continued to work together. “There is hope and light and better days ahead,” Biden said near the end of the speech – and the image that came to my mind was Red walking on that beach in Zihuatanejo while Andy was working on his boat. What a beautiful moment.

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