Biden seeks to regain the initiative after the shock of the 'impeachment'

President-elect Joe Biden, last Friday, in Wilmington.Susan Walsh / AP

His imminent arrival in power shaken by the historic institutional crisis that the United States is going through, Joe Biden tries to keep his project afloat, dodging the leading role in the offensive of his congressmen to condemn Donald Trump for "inciting insurrection."

Shifting the focus to the enormous challenges facing the country, the president-elect seeks to take the lead with an ambitious federal investment package to combat the pandemic and activate the economy.

But he will need the cooperation of a busy Senate in impeachment of his predecessor.

The upheaval that has blown up the transition of power puts its centrist project to close the cracks in the country to a severe test.

Tens of millions of Americans consider him an illegitimate president.

At least a few thousand of them are willing to risk their skin, storming the Capitol to prevent him from moving into the White House next week.

He comes to the presidency in the midst of a monstrous pandemic that continues to leave thousands of deaths every day and that has devastated the economy.

He will begin his mandate with small majorities in both legislative chambers;

with a party divided between centrists and leftists, in search of a course;

with the country's international prestige in tatters, its morale devastated, and with a pending trial in the Senate, which will complicate its urgent legislative agenda, an outgoing president who has torpedoed the transition of power and has not even congratulated him.

The fear that has gripped the capital and the latent terrorist threat will take away the bathroom of crowds that traditionally covers each new president at his inauguration.

At 78, Joe Biden sets out to fulfill the dream of a lifetime.

But he could hardly think in all these years that he would do it under these circumstances.

The main message of his political project is to unite the country.

But few missions seem so complicated today.

While the House of Representatives approved the second

impeachment

of Trump, promoted by the Democratic congressmen after the Trumpist hordes took the Capitol, the president-elect wanted to stand on the sidelines of such a historic event, which has blown up the already rarefied transition of power, and maintain the focus on the great challenges facing the country.

After the vote in the lower house, in which 10 Republicans voted in favor with the Democrats, Biden again denounced the violent assault on “public servants in the citadel of freedom” and referred to Trump's impeachment as “a bipartisan vote of congressmen who followed the Constitution and their consciences ”.

But he asked senators to try to find a way that the upper house trial, which in all likelihood will take place when Biden is already in power, does not hinder other priorities.

"This nation remains in the grip of a deadly virus and a reeling economy," he declared.

"I hope that the Senate leadership will find a way to manage their responsibilities with impeachment while working on the other pressing issues of this nation."

Biden insisted, shortly after the historic vote, on his mission to ensure that Americans remain "united as one nation," a message that has centered his presidential career from the beginning.

And he resigned to become the standard bearer of the demand for accountability to Trump, giving prominence to the president of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Democrats in Congress.

"What Congress decides to do is up to them," he said days after the assault.

In the midst of the historic crisis, Biden seeks to take the lead with a proposal for a trillion-dollar federal investment, in which his team has been working for weeks, to combat the pandemic and its effects on the economy.

The coronavirus hits harder than ever, forcing states to impose more restrictions, and the Labor Department reported on Thursday that 1.15 million more people claimed unemployment benefits in the first week of the year, a rise 25% compared to the previous one.

"Right now, the president-elect feels that we need to move aggressively in both rescue and recovery," Brian Deese, who was chosen to head the National Economic Council, told a Reuters news agency event.

To move forward, it will need the cooperation of Congress, where in recent months the processing of federal aid has been a dramatic and cumbersome process.

The priority of Biden is to work the support of the republicans, to guarantee a governability without too many surprises.

The proposal is divided into two legislative initiatives.

The first plans to include, among other items, the sending of direct checks for 2,000 dollars (1,645 euros) to citizens, the extension of supplements to unemployment benefits and support for vaccination and diagnostic tests;

the second, larger, is focused on investments in job creation and infrastructure, including clean energy, as well as in health and education.

The idea of ​​the Democrats is to finance the package with a tax increase on the wealthiest and companies.

The upheaval that the country is experiencing today puts to a demanding test Biden's commitment to close, from a cautious centrist approach, the deep cracks that these four years of Trumpism have opened in the American political culture.

But it also reinforces the urgency of his mission: "Never before has it been more crucial than now that we stand together as a nation," said the president-elect.

With few exceptions, throughout his campaign Biden has followed the strategy of staying above the mud that his rival insisted on dragging him into.

But when he arrives at the White House next week, he will not have an easy ride around the noise of a trial of his predecessor that will demand media coverage and may even hinder the mandatory Senate confirmations of his Cabinet members.

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