White House that acted as a celebrity- driven rage
machine, it seems naive to think of the presidency
as an engine of progress.
So while Biden will be the 46th man to serve as
President, he may be the first since Lincoln to in-
herit a Republic that is questioning the viability of
its union. “This moment was one of those do-or-die
moments,” Biden says. “Had Trump won, I think
we would have changed the nature of who we are
as a country for a long time.” Yet Trump, many ex-
perts argue, is not the aberration Biden describes
but rather a symptom of America’s chronic condi-
tions: a legacy of racism and widening inequality
that undermines both its ideals and its functioning.
Biden and Harris share a faith that empathetic
governance can restore the solidarity we’ve lost.
Biden told TIME he has lately been reading about
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first 100 days, when FDR
worked to pull the nation out of the Great Depres-
sion, a feat that helped restore confidence in de-
mocracy. “We’re the only country in the world that
has come out of every crisis stronger than we went
into the crisis,” he insists. “I predict we will come
out of this crisis stronger than when we went in.”
Their challenge is, above all, not about any one pol-
icy, proposal or piece of legislation. It is convincing
America that a future exists, for all of us, together. It
is nothing less than reconciling America with itself.
PHOTOGRAPH BY TONY LUONG FOR TIME
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