US election 2020: Biden's striking proclamation offers a real glimpse of what Americans can expect
He did what presidents usually do: faced up to the crises, empathised with the victims and promised to work towards a way out.
Saturday 7 November 2020 19:58, UK
If it wasn't the victory speech that Joe Biden had hoped to deliver to the American people at primetime on a聽Friday night, it was certainly a striking proclamation of the聽very different direction he is offering the country.
The soon-to-be president-elect, standing alongside his vice presidential pick Kamala Harris, had been expected to merely provide a progress report on the state of the slow march to an election result.
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Instead, on COVID-19, the economy, climate change and the divisions in society, he offered the American people a real glimpse of what they can expect from his administration.
We have heard much of it before, on the campaign trail and since election night, but the Biden-Harris project is now looking like it will be a reality for the American people come January.
"I will work as hard for the people who voted against me as for the people who voted for me," he said. "That is the job. It is called a duty of care."
He mentioned Donald Trump by name just once - to boast about the vote margin - but there was no mistaking his belief that America has spent four years on the wrong path.
If the verbal stumbles and uncertainties that are part of the Biden package were sometimes noticeable, there was no mistaking his belief in what the country needs right now.
He did what presidents usually do: faced up to the crises gripping the country, empathised with the victims and promised to work towards a way out.
The intent was clear: to project himself as the president-in-waiting, filling the vacuum left by the current occupant of the White House, as he spends his time ranting and raving about the election result.
Who wouldn't agree with Biden's call for the vitriol to be taken out of political and social discourse? It is an easy call to make but, in today's America, a very different proposition to deliver.
The reality is that there are thousands of supporters of Donald Trump who are unwilling to even accept that Biden will be a legitimate president.
They are making their views plain and many of them are determined to hound Biden in office just as they believe the current president has been unfairly attacked by his political opponents.
No one is going to heal those divisions overnight. We can only hope that Biden is true to his word that he is serious about bridging the divide.
Even before the result has been declared, there is a sense that the Biden era has already begun.