Dr. Mozammel Haque
“Despite Mr. Trump’s efforts, America’s Constitutional arrangement worked. The election was held, the votes were counted, challenges were heard. Many of the Judges that heard allegations of fraud were Republican appointees, some even appointed by Mr. Trump. Many of the executives and legislatures in states whose results Mr Trump disputed were Republican-led. Each of America’s institutions played their allotted role. As a result Mr. Biden and Senator Kamala Harris will be legitimately sworn in as president and vice-president,” wrote The Times editorially on 10th of January 2021.
Joseph Biden was sworn in on Thursday, 21st of January 2021 in a scaled down ceremony due to coronavirus and Capitol Hill attack by the supporters of former President Donald Trump on 6 January 2021. Biden proves perseverance brought success ultimately. He achieves his long sought goal diverse America, diverse administration but in a deeply divided, fractured nation.
Joe Biden is the first President to be the oldest President of the United States of America at the age of 78 after being tried 36 years as Senator and two terms Vice-President. He is the second Catholic after the first Catholic President John F. Kennedy.
Congratulations to the 46th President
of the United States: Joseph Biden
Joe Biden has been elected as the 46th President of the United States. Mr Biden won the presidential election with 306 votes in the Electoral College – the system the US uses to elect a president – to Mr Trump’s 232. The College met on 14 December 2020 to formalise the outcome. Under the US Constitution Mr Biden took office as 46th President on 20 January 2021 regardless of whether Trump admits defeat.
But Mr. Trump has challenged throughout the election that the increase in postal ballots had led to widespread fraud, but there was no evidence of this. Trump piled up dozens of failed election results, as US Attorney General William Barr said: “his Justice Department has found no evidence of Donald Trump’s widespread claim of voting frauds in the 2020 elections.”
This 2020 U.S. Election
Unprecedented in US History
The US Election 2020 is unprecedented in many ways:
Firstly, the 2020 Presidential election was the first in history in which people voted before election day than on it. 2020 Presidential Election, pitting Joe Biden against Donald Trump was the first in history in which more people voted before election day than on it. “In the midst of pandemic, more than 94 millions Americans had already cast their ballots by yesterday 2020, a record for early voting. It was equivalent to 70% of the 2016 turnout even before the Election Day dawn (Guardian reported on 3 November).
On the eve of the election, Mr Biden leads nationally by 7.5.points according to Financial Times analysis of polling data compiled. (Financial Times, 3 November, 2020) According to the US Election Project, which tracks voting, more than 95 million Americans, 69 per cent of the total number cast in 2016 have already voted.
The US is poised to record its biggest election turnout in recent memory, according to political scientists and election lawyers, allaying fears the pandemic would discourage a significant percentage of people from voting.
Historic early voting nearly 100 million ballots cast before election by Danny Dougherty. In 2016, 47 million Americans cast ballots before Elect Day. (2020 turnout is on pace to brak century-old records). At least 101.9 million voted early nationwide. By Oct 22 of 2020 that record was broken, and by Nov. 3, it was shattered. (Reported in Washington Post, 8 November 2020).
Secondly, it is also the first American election in which the incumbent President has said he will try to stop the vote count if early returns on election might show him to be ahead, and has openly encouraged acts of intimidation by his supporters.
Thirdly, 2020 elections show the biggest turnout in recent memory, according to political scientists and election lawyers.
Fourthly, Nature of US 2020 elections, “The last-minute jockeying reflected an alarming feature of this year’s presidential campaign: Rather than an orderly process to arrange the peaceful maintenance or transfer of power, the nation has spent the past several days preparing for decades, with property owners across the country boarding up storefront windows against fears of civil unrest, law enforcement agencies going on high alert to prevent polling place disruptions and frequent threats from Trump call the legitimacy of elections,” said The Washington Post on 5th of November 2020.
Fifthly, this election is shaping up to be a historic for Biden, the first time an incumbent president has been defeated in 28 years. Biden has already broken Barack Obama’s record for votes received by a presidential candidate (69.5 million) with many ballots yet to be counted – in the highest turnout election in 120 years.
Biden overcame some of the dirtiest tricks ever used: Laws and lawsuits to black democratic voters from voting or their ballots getting counted dark-web disinformation, mysterious robocalls, sabotage of the postal service and using the justice department as an arm of Presidential campaign.
Joe Biden’s President-elect –
Amninistrative priorities and Administrative Team
Biden website now in priorities’ for the incoming presidency – Covid-19, economic recovery, racial equality and climate change.’
First-ever in American Democracy
Biden’s planned nominations have included historic first for women and racial minorities
Biden’s Diverse Administration
1. First female Vice-President – Kamala Harris
Kamala Harris is the first Black and South Asian Vice president, and the first woman to hold that office. Harris, senator from California, make history as the first woman; first Black person and the first person of South Asian descent to become Vice President.
a) First female Black Vice President
b) First Female Vice President of Asian Heritage
c) First woman Black South-African Vice-President
2. First Black American Defence Secretary
First Black person to head the Pentagon; Joe Biden taps retired army general Lloyd Austin as his Defence Secretary. Joe Biden nominates African-American to hold the post of Defence Secretary of State subject to confirmation by the Congress and Senate.
General Austin Lloyd served in the U.S. Army for more than 40 years.
3. First female Treasury Secretary of State Janet Yellen
Joe Biden appointed First female Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen; First woman to lead the Central Bank. Janet Yellen was the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve, if confirmed she would become the first person to have headed the Treasury, then the Central Bank.
4. First Secretary of State
Antony Blinken
5. First woman of colour to run the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
Joe Biden appointed first woman of colour Neera Tanden to run the Office of Management and Budget.
6. First Latino Xivier Becerra Secretary of State for Health
Joe Biden appointed First Latino Xivier Becerra, California’s Attorney General to become the Secretary of State for Health.
7. First ever Native American Cabinet Secretary Dr. Deb Haaland
Joe Biden appointed Ms Haaland, one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress, would be the first ever Native American Cabinet Secretary.
8. Dr Miguel Cardona as Secretary of State for Education
Dr. Cardona’s grand parents are from Puerto Rico – would be the second Latino to run the Education Department after Lauro Cavazos in the late 1980s.
9. First woman of colour to chair the CEA
Cecilia Rouse would be the first woman of colour to chair the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA).
10. First Female Secretary of State for first Black Senator in history.
First-ever in American Democracy
1. Joe Biden was the first Democratic Presidential candidate in the State to win the State in almost 30 years.
Biden was the first the oldest President at the age of 78 years
Biden is the second Catholic President after John F. Kennedy who was the First Catholic President
Donald Trump former President of USA
1. Former President Donald Trump did not attend the inauguration ceremony on 20 January 2021. He is the first President not to attend the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony since the 1860s – more than 150 years.
2. First time U.S. President Impeach twice. Donald Trump is the first President in U.S. history to be impeached for the second time.
President Joe Biden’s Inaugural Address
Joseph R. Biden Jr., in his first address as president, made a sweeping call for unity, truth and racial justice as the nation faces one of its darkest hours in the midst of a raging pandemic and bitter political division, reported by The Washington Post.
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It also added, “The address came just days after the deadly siege of the Capitol, during which supporters of former President Donald Trump broke through police barriers and ransacked the building as Congress gathered to ratify Biden's election.
"Today we celebrate the triumph, not of a candidate, but of a cause, the cause of democracy," Biden said. "The people, the will of the people, has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded." He went on, "We've learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed."”
The Future
Madeline Albright writing in The Financial Times on 12 October 2020 observed: “Mr. Biden, if elected, will inherit a country diminished by his predecessor’s search for ‘greatness’ in all the wrong places: The new president’s task will be daunting: to reassure allies; reassert leadership on climate change and world health; forge effective coalitions to check the ambitions of China, Russia and Iran; and re-establish the US’s identity as a champion of democracy.” The writer is a former US Secretary of State and author of ‘Hell and Other Destinations: A 21st Century Memoir’.
But there are brightest side also.
Though the next couple of years could be ugly and unproductive, but there are brightest side also. Mr. Brandy Dennis said, “Gone will be a president who daily weakens democracy with authoritarian tendencies. Out will be the man who fuels our basest instincts with racism, vulgarity, vitriol, violence, self-dealing, lies and conspiracy theories. We’ll gain control of the pandemic, and you’ll return to school safely, we’ll rejoin the fellowship of nations. We’ll care about human rights again.
America and the world, can exhale for now. We’ve avoided the worst outcome.”
President Biden’s First day Executive Orders
In his first hours as president, Joe Biden started signing a series of executive actions that reverse his predecessor’s orders on immigration, climate change, and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
President Biden signed 15 orders and actions hours after being sworn in as US leader to break from Trump policies and set new paths on immigration, the environment, fighting COVID-19 and the economy, they said.
In first-day moves, he undo significant action from his predecessor Donald Trump’s much-assailed ban on visitors from several Muslim-majority countries and halt construction of the wall that Trump ordered on the US-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration. He also set a mask-wearing mandate on federal properties to stem the spread of COVID-19, restore protections of nature reserves removed by Trump, and seek freezes on evictions and protection for millions behind on their mortgages because of the pandemic, reported by The Guardian.
He also signed an order allowing the United States to rejoin the Paris climate agreement and end the Trump administration’s efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the census data used to determine how many seats in Congress each state gets.
“As he began signing the orders, Biden, wearing a mask and seated behind the ResoluteDesk, said: “I think some of the things we’re going to be doing are bold and vital, and there’s no time to start like today.”
The Guardian also wrote: It’s not unusual for an incoming president to take executive action immediately after being sworn into office, a move meant to show the nation that the newly inaugurated president is getting to work. But the breadth and volume of Biden’s immediate executive orders underscore how quickly the new president intends to move in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic and turning the page from the Trump administration.
It continued: “These executive actions will make an immediate impact in the lives of so many people in desperate need of help,” Wade Henderson, the interim president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement. “Reversing Trump’s deeply discriminatory Muslim ban, addressing the Covid-19 crisis, preventing evictions and foreclosures, and advancing equity and support for communities of color and other underserved communities are significant early actions that represent an important first step in charting a new direction for our country.”
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