Joe Biden formally becomes the Democratic presidential candidate
Joe Biden is now formally the Democratic candidate for President of the United States, after the second day of the historic Democratic Convention which ends this Thursday.
In a virtual vote, where the cultural diversity and the wide range of activists and political positions have been seen, the party awarded Biden the nomination he has pursued intermittently since 1988. In this way, Biden becomes the scourge against President Donald Trump, whom he hopes to defeat in the November election.
The convention was scheduled to be held in Milwaukee, but the coronavirus pandemic has caused Democratic dignitaries and activists to cast their votes from various locations in all 50 states. Educators, elected officials, union members, workers and health care providers participated in the celebration, sometimes from exotic locations, beaches and landmarks in their states.
At 77, Biden has finally succeeded in becoming the Democratic candidate for the White House after two failed attempts: the first in 1988, when a plagiarism scandal sidelined him from the nomination, and in 2008 when he was overshadowed by the powerful candidacies of Hillary Clinton and former President Barak Obama. In 2016, Biden's failure to run was seen as a resignation from the Oval Office. But Biden's long-awaited victory is a triumph over the personal and political resistance of a 30-year-old man who entered the Senate.
The second day of the convention featured important faces in Democratic Party history such as former Presidents Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State John Kerry and Caroline Kenney.
Clinton's participation in the convention was on the air until the last minute. The former president, long relegated to the background and even third place by the Democrats, spoke for less than five minutes and focused on criticizing Trump for his handling of the crisis, but remembering his political and dialectical skills, which made him a dual resident of the White House: "Donald Trump says we are leading the world. Well, we're the only major industrial economy that has tripled its unemployment rate," and he described Biden as a responsible leader, "a guy on earth who does his job. Our choice is Joe Biden."
If the first day was marked by the attacks on the Trump Administration and its inability to control the COVID-19 pandemic, the second day, beyond the coronavirus crisis, Democrats discussed the cost of health care, the importance of addressing armed violence and climate change.
These measures have been defended by many young progressive activists in the party, closer to Bernie Sanders' left-wing, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, since the Vermont congressman's withdrawal, has become a banner of the progressive movement. Her brief 90-second speech showed that she and her people will support Biden, but that the left remains a force to be reckoned with.
An unexpected star was Jill Biden, wife of the Democratic candidate, who sought an optimistic tone for a political climate capitalized on by polarization. "There are those who want to tell us that our country is desperately divided, that our differences are unrecognizable," said the former second lady. "We have shown that the heart of this nation still beats with goodness and courage. That is the soul of America that Joe Biden is now fighting for.
In her speech through the halls and empty classrooms of a school where she has served as an English teacher, Jill Biden seemed to understand better than any politician the concerns of Americans: the return to the classroom, the health crisis and the loss of millions of jobs, and she pointed to her husband as the only one capable of restoring chaos and "healing a divided country.
The discomfort and weariness of the four years of the Trump Administration by many Republicans could also be seen during the Democratic Convention. The evening featured a video about the friendship between Biden and the late Senator John McCain, narrated by the Republican's widow, Cindy McCain. The two, despite being political rivals, were great friends and the former vice president made a moving speech at McCain's funeral in 2018. Another Republican, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, also gave video testimony about the Democratic candidate.
In the latest polls, the Democratic candidate is still in the lead and experts are betting on Biden's victory, but there are still several months to go before the election and, although it seems that the margin between Trump and Biden is considerable, it is not definitive, much less in such an unprecedented year as 2020.