President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a searing message to Americans fighting fatigue from the COVID-19 pandemic, urging the U.S. to not give up the fight. Biden promised his administration will be unrelenting in its battle against a virus that has largely spun out of control as infection rates surge around the country and as his soon-to-be predecessor seems largely resigned to continue politicizing the virus.
“There is real hope, tangible hope. So hang on. Don’t let yourself surrender to the fatigue,” Biden said in an address from Wilmington, Delaware, lauding the emergence of promising COVID-19 vaccines poised for distribution. He urged Americans to be vigilant in observing guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to combat the spread of the coronavirus over the Thanksgiving holiday.
"America is not going to lose this war," Biden said in a Thanksgiving address on Wednesday, urging Americans not to surrender to fatigue in combating the coronavirus pandemic. "Life is going to return to normal, I promise you," he said. pic.twitter.com/SyB66Og0mZ
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 25, 2020
The message — mask-wearing and social-distancing, were not new — and yet President Trump who has bunkered strongly since his electoral defeat has remained largely silent in his leadership on curbing the virus even as coronavirus deaths have topped more than a quarter-million in the U.S.
“America is not going to lose this war. You will get your lives back. Life is going to return to normal,” Biden said.
The incoming President offered a thinly-veiled criticism of President Trump’s pandemic response, suggesting that none of the science-driven guidance that would be put forward in the coming months as he takes his place in the White House would take sides in a partisan fight.
“None of these steps we’re asking people to take are political statements,” Biden said. “Every one of them is based in science.”
The comments which were consistent with remarks the President-elect made after he was declared the projected winner of the presidential election on Nov. 7, when he said that he would “marshal the forces of science” to battle the coronavirus pandemic. At that time he vowed to make a national pandemic response his top priority even before he is inaugurated as President.
The remarks on Wednesday were a sharp departure from President Donald Trump’s continuous efforts to undermine the wisdom of scientists and health experts within his own administration with regard to battling the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden’s words buffeted by a hopeful spirit about a future unhindered by coronavirus, also touched on the nation’s recent battle to uphold democracy amid President Trump’s ongoing efforts to overturn the will of the people by advancing baseless claims aimed at whittling away the integrity of the vote in a number of battleground states that he lost in his failed reelection bid.
“Our democracy was tested this year,” Biden said.
He appeared to indirectly address President Trump when he declared that American democracy would prevail and the voters’ vision would be observed.
“In America, we have full and fair and free elections, and then we honor the results. The people of this nation and the laws of the land won’t stand for anything else,” Biden said.
The President-elect who who will be tasked with serving as a unifying force in a fiercely divided country, called on Americans of all political persuasions to “come together and work together” and jointly “write a newer, bolder, more compassionate chapter in the life of our nation.”
“Through the vote — the noblest instrument of nonviolent protest ever conceived — we are reminded anew that progress is possible,” Biden said.
Countdown to the right having a meltdown over Biden’s presumptuousness in giving a speech that should have been given by a POTUS. The fact that the one we have has never, in four years, ever given a speech that was meant to offer hope and to call on us to turn to what Lincoln would have called “the better angels of our nature” will not be an issue. He hasn’t given such a speech because he only thinks of himself.
And I try not to quibble with word choice when I’m off the clock, but " Biden’s words buffeted by a hopeful spirit…"? Perhaps they were “buttressed by a hopeful spirit” or “addressed a country buffeted by a year of challenges and turmoil”?
May this be a season of hope for all of us.
The US can have only one president at a time and, for the past four years, Trump hasn’t chosen to do the job.
We should not waste time being concerned with how the current occupant responds to this. Rather than being concerned with what Trump will do, he needs to fear what will happen to him, once out of office. It is clear that he is too busy covering his own tracks to be concerned with doing the duties of the office. I hope that nothing gets in the way of the individual states who were venues for his crimes investigating and exposing (and, hopefully, prosecuting) him to their full ability.
Mr. Biden… would it be too much to ask to show trump how a leader sets up a national plan to fight a presently out of control virus? And how the experts at CDC (if any are left that is) do it?
trump has sat on his fat slovenly pimpled ass since last January when we knew a problem was on the horizon. It was in January that the Chinese had discovered the genomic sequence of covid. We knew…trump knew and he did nothing. NOTHING AT ALL. If that is not criminal I do not know what is.
@libthinker, Biden needs to move now, right the fuck now, on this pandemic. trump is a waste of time and effort. Let him play golf and scratch his ass. Until 1/20/21 when he gets indicted and faces the music. Sorry but I am feeling mean and unforgiving at the moment.
A President! A President! My nearly-wrecked republic for a President at last!