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Long division

Jon Fasman: Washington correspondent, The Economist, WASHINGTON, DC

America’s culture wars will intensify

The fight goes on

Joe Biden will be unable to deliver the unity he promised

2021 in brief

America marks 20 years since the attacks of September 11th 2001. Hijackers flew
aeroplanes into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington,
DC. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people were killed

BERNIE SANDERS and Elizabeth Warren had more passionate fans. Kamala Harris and
Pete Buttigieg were more poised speakers. But Joe Biden had something other
Democratic candidates lacked: faith that he could bring Democrats and Republicans
together. Many considered this naive and unrealistic. But it appealed to enough voters
to propel him past his more strident challengers in the primary, and then to defeat the
most divisive president in modern history.

It is not hard to see why. The past four years—and to a lesser extent, the eight before
that, under Barack Obama—have been a period of intense cultural and political