What Biden gets about being president -- and Trump doesn't
'It was especially refreshing to see President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris use their CNN interview with Jake Tapper on Thursday to make clear that leading America is, first and always, a complex effort requiring the cooperation and good will of millions.
Coming less than a day after a bizarre, unhinged video rant by President Donald Trump, the Biden-Harris conversation made clear why voters kicked Trump out of the White House.
Trump spouted falsehoods and tried to advance his own interests by demanding that somebody -- courts, state legislatures, maybe even Santa Claus -- somehow reverse the outcome of the election he lost last month. Biden and Harris, by contrast, talked about the national interest and urged the public to support their plans for the future.
To battle the coronavirus pandemic, Biden said he will issue a mandate for all Americans to wear masks for a little more than 3 months -- long enough to help halt and reverse the surging infection numbers. "Just 100 days to mask, not forever," he told Tapper. "100 days. And I think we'll see a significant reduction."
That nuanced call to arms is a 180-degree reversal from Trump's steadfast refusal to order the use of masks and his plea to the public back in October, shortly after he himself had contracted the virus: "Don't let it dominate you. Don't be afraid of it. You're going to beat it."
We've had a year of divisive bombast and boasting with Trump claiming the virus would vanish; that he accepted no responsibility for the failed national response; and finally threw up his hands at the over 276,000 deaths from the virus, saying "it is what it is." . . .
"You're not gonna see me making policy by tweets," Biden told Tapper. That's a consequence we can all welcome.'
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/opinions/joe-biden-kamala-harris-jake-tapper-interview-louis/index.html
sprinkleeninow
(20,135 posts)Cha
(295,925 posts)NJCher
(35,428 posts)...convene, coax, and cajole.
But thats how people take ownership. With ownership comes commitment.