THE United States of America (USA) officially entered the Joe Biden era on Thursday after a phase of tumult that tested all dynamics of politics, statesmanship, personal relations in an electoral process that will be long remembered by the world as a scary fight of acrimony. It had almost reached the dangerous precipice of an anarchy when an angry mob charged violently at the temple of US’ democracy, the Capitol, before sanity prevailed and the rightful place to the ultimate winner, Mr. Joseph Robinette Biden, was handed over in a serene ceremony marked by passionate and powerful exhortations “to defend the truth and defeat lies”. Mr. Joe Biden’s time as the 46th President of the United States has started and the world is watching with all the more eagerness. As he took oath as the President for all Americans, those who voted for him and those who voted against him, while placing his hand on the holy family Bible, Mr. Biden injected a definite hope not only for America but also for the world which had seen some peculiar ways of governance by the maverick who ruled the superpower in his own cavalier style.

 

That the 45th President, Mr. Donald Trump, chose to skip the Inauguration ceremony of his successor in a show of rare stubbornness summed up the era that the US had chosen to change through the ballot box. The road ahead for Mr. Biden is full of thorns strewn across by the policy vicissitudes adopted by Mr. Trump. Undoing the Trump legacy is an onerous task that the Biden administration will have to accomplish in a Senate with 50-50 majority and the casting vote of Vice-President Ms. Kamala Harris, the first woman VP America has ever seen. The Biden-Harris combo holds tremendous potential to deliver the promises made during the election campaign. How they weave their way around the legalities and domestic politics will determine their own legacy in a world that has turned on the axis due to the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Mr. Biden has called for a united fight to come out of the coronavirus threat. Gravity of the health situation prevailing in America and magnitude of the pandemic leave little scope for the President to fail in his job. He has to bring in a different approach to the pandemic than the present measures in practice to fight the COVID-19 battle. Mr. Biden’s decision to ramp up vaccination shows he has a plan ready to deal with the catastrophe. Healing the nation that has lost lakhs of its dear ones to the virus is the most prominent task cut out for Mr. Biden before he goes for the reconstruction of the economy ravaged by the pandemic. By invoking the victory of democracy to announce the change in regime, Mr. Biden has stoked the long-raging debate in the world which has its own opinion about the way Mr. Trump charted his course. Undermining of democratic values while ruling the top power in the world remained a common grudge for people opposing the Trump regime.

 

He was, indeed, “a flash-bang grenade thrown into Washington by the forgotten men and women of America” as Senator Mr. Ted Cruz had described Mr. Trump. But for all his no-compromise, quasi-authoritarian politics, even the former President could not rock the foundation of democratic institutions. He was stopped in the tracks again and again by the executive and the judiciary, and finally asked to vacate the White House through a democratic process of elections. Democracy is too strong to resist such shenanigans. The popular outlook towards democracy is now back in vogue in the United States through Mr. Biden. He will have to make the best use of his time at the Oval Office now to repair all the damages caused internally as well as in global alliances. This is the area that will be watched with great interest by India as it continues to thwart the hegemonic China at the door. India’s fight will need a strong hand of friendship from the United States. Mr. Biden has indicated that the US would continue to back India against challenges to its sovereignty. The cooperation should not be limited only at defence and information sharing level. New Delhi is eager to expand it with open arms in ‘Joe’s Time’.