Joe Biden’s election to the presidency is, more than anything else, an important victory for democracy in today’s troubled world.
In 2016, voters narrowly elected a well-known New York businessman, hoping for change in Washington. Donald Trump’s deficiencies were likely well known, but voters expected him to grow into the office. When he didn’t, they showed him the door.
This is what Democracy does best — make change. And this demonstration in the world’s oldest democracy is vital for the future of the world.
In fact, peacefully removing the worst leaders is perhaps more important to democracy than electing the best.
Autocratic regimes usually fail because there is no way remove a bad leader. Leaders for life like China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin may be competent today, but who’s to say they will be forever? Autocracies can luck out and get good leaders, but that’s the exception.
People are cheering Trump’s defeat, and you can’t blame them, but we should have some sympathy for Trump and his family.
Trump is in many ways a quintessential American figure, a promoter bursting with self-confidence. Think the Great Gatsby or the Wizard of Oz. Why did he run? Did he really want to be President? Was it all a publicity stunt? We may never know.
And the family business is now in trouble. The Trump brand is irrevocably tarnished. How can you sell luxury around the name of an incompetent, defeated president?
It’s also a reckoning for the Republican Party. Will it double-down on white angst and become a minority party opposed to change in America? Or will it adopt the Ronald Reagan-style optimism of the 1980s.
The end of the Trump presidency came down to character. Many of Trump’s defenders — evangelical Christian leaders, the Wall Street Journal editorial board among them — told us to focus on his policies. But policies can change while character doesn’t. Especially in a 74-year-old man.
Historians will long debate the Trump presidency — its accomplishments, its failures, and its meaning. But one word may sum it up: resentment.
Despite his wealth and celebrity status, he had a chip on his shoulder. It came through in every public event. This resentment resonated with many voters, and in an odd way brought him closer to Xi and Putin, who channeled resentment over their countries’ past failures and defeats.
But resentment doesn’t create a path to the future, and American voters clearly understood this. America is about creating a City on a Hill, not about getting even with your supposed enemies.
Biden is the antithesis of resentment. He has overcome challenges his whole life, beginning with a hard childhood in Scranton — a failing coal town — after his father’s business collapsed. His first wife and daughter died. Then his adult son. His presidential campaigns went nowhere. As late as mid March, his political future was in doubt. But we never heard him complain, and now he’s president of the United States.
Our new president embodies the true spirit of America — and of Democracy.
Chris Jennewein is editor and publisher of Times of San Diego.
