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Joe Biden sworn in as US President: "Did that really just happen?"

2021-01-21T06:58:27.741Z


"Relief, joy, hope": Joe Biden's inauguration marks the end of the Trump era. International media see a great opportunity in the new president - but also limits to optimism.


Icon: enlarge

Joe and Jill Biden on the White House balcony

Photo: 

TOM BRENNER / REUTERS

The end of the Donald Trump era in the White House brings relief internationally.

The new President Joe Biden has received praise - but many commentators believe that he is also facing difficult tasks.

The

Washington Post

from the American capital says of the new president's speech:

“The address was more authentic for Biden than rhetorically demanding; these features usually contradict each other.

It should give an idea of ​​what kind of man the president is - confident, blunt, practical, frank.

The speech was a rhetorical x-ray.

It showed that Biden's heart was in the right place - something you couldn't assume given Trump's unfamiliar anatomy. "

Commented

a

CNN.com writer

:

“Did that really just happen?

Was it all just a dream?

As I gathered my family to watch the historic inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the event took on a surreal atmosphere.

Barack and Michelle Obama were there looking like they hadn't aged a day.

George W. Bush was there too, greeting his old friends with his elbows.

And the Clintons, who in some ways never seem to have left Washington DC.

It was a look back at an earlier era, an era before the "American Slaughter."

Gone were the anger and the division.

Nobody said America had to be made great again.

The air, filled with nerve-racking fear, was blown away.

Even the Capitol Building didn't show the scars from being stormed just two weeks ago. "

The Viennese newspaper

»Der Standard«

says:

“It's like having to change wheels in a moving car on the freeway.

This is how a political scientist from the US University of Berkeley recently described the challenge facing the new US President Joe Biden.

Every third voter does not recognize him as his president, Republicans and Democrats in Congress have four years of fierce struggle behind them, morale in the country is at a low point, the economy is in decline and the corona pandemic is not nearly over yet.

In absolute terms, the United States is the country with the highest number of documented infections and deaths due to a lack of strategies.

So a Mission Impossible?

In any case, the starting position is bleak.

The new US administration has plenty of good intentions.

The idealistic Joe Biden appears as the "healer", and in his inaugural address he also invoked unity and solidarity.

It is unlikely that Biden can use gestures of reconciliation to take away the fears that the populist has fueled and served from the die-hard voters of Donald Trump. "

The

"Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung"

writes about the inauguration of Joe Biden:

“His relief, said the Federal President, that Joe Biden is now moving into the White House.

Like him, the vast majority of Europeans have looked forward to the transfer of power in the United States, if not after the recent events.

(...) This view of happy expectation expresses all the relief that the Trump era is finally over and that we are about to start a new partnership that has suffered just as badly over the past four years as the reputation of the United States States.

You don't have to think about it right away, but you will know how far the new feeling of happiness will carry you at the latest when the new team has started work and everyday government life has returned - when pathos gives way to interests. "

In the

»Süddeutsche Zeitung«

from Munich it says:

“On the day that Joe Biden could have celebrated his rise to president and thus the achievement of his life goal, he made sure that tenants who lost their jobs because of the pandemic did not lose their apartments despite late payments, and that students can study even though they are currently unable to pay the fees.

He took care of the big and the small on his first day.

He was not a man of words or sorrow.

He was a man of action.

It is very possible that American society has suffered too much damage to be repaired.

But if, with a little optimism, you can trust a person to get this damage under control at least partially and to transfer it to a pleasing January 2022, then it is 78-year-old Joe Biden, who in his long career above all seems to have learned one thing: what is really important. "

»The chances of success are small, but the change in style is a value in itself. ´´

The Berlin

»Tagesspiegel«

comments on the change in power as follows:

“Relief, joy, hope.

Donald Trump is history, with no last outburst of violence.

With Joe Biden, civility and respect return.

In the jubilation about the new presidency, the disillusionment is already evident, true to the motto ›You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose‹.

Because 78-year-old Joe Biden has to perform a triple balancing act in order to bridge the gap between expectations, willingness and ability.

(...) Reconciliation of the camps?

Of course, it is right and imperative that Biden invite the people who did not vote for him and promise them to be their president too.

The chances of success are slim, but the change in style is a value in itself. "

Icon: The mirror

mes / dpa

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-01-21

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