By Williams Anuku, Abuja
At his inauguration on Wednesday 20th January, overshadowed by the chaotic four-year tenure of his predecessor Donald John Trump, Biden noted that the “violence (of Jan. 6) has shaken our foundation. But democracy has prevailed.”
“We will get through this together,” he said, assuring that he would be president for all.
He and his successor in the office are not only different in politics but also in character, with Biden bringing decades of public service and experience to his new job.
On the hand, Trump, a celebrity, business showman, did not disappoint millions of his supporters.
He did not only reject his poll defeat but incited them on January 6, to attack and desecrate Congress, the legislative arm of America’s 244 years of democracy.
No thanks to that attack and Trump’s intransigent disruptions, Washington DC, the seat of American power and much of the country’s 50 were under security lockdown, Wednesday, with a palpable fear of domestic terrorism.
To drive home his unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that the November 7 vote won by Biden, had been stolen, Trump refused to attend Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday.
The invasion of Congress led to Trump’s second impeachment by the House of Representatives, with his possible trial by the Senate.
Biden,78, picked Kamala Harri, who was also sworn in as vice president, making her the first woman of Black and Asian descent to hold that office in America.
But Trump has left Biden’s government with a mammoth task – the healing of a deeply divided nation, which currently holds the notorious record of the highest COVID-19 fatalities, more than 400,000 from over 24 million of the world’s reported 96 million cases.
The Biden administration will also face the challenge of wielding together a world divided by Trumpism.