Joe Biden by Beatrice Gormley (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📕

the decent jobs that these workers used to count on, such as in manufacturing and coal mining. He promised a trillion-dollar infrastructure program to provide hundreds of thousands of new construction jobs. He promised to protect US borders from Latin American immigrants. In fact, he promised to find and remove all undocumented immigrants from the US.

On election night, November 8, even as Hillary Clinton’s followers gathered for a huge victory party, the returns came in for Donald Trump. Very early on November 9, the TV networks declared Trump the winner. The final electoral vote was Trump 306, Clinton 232. Donald Trump would become the forty-fifth president of the United States.

The Electoral College

In the United States, the president is not elected by the popular vote, the total of all votes cast throughout the country. Instead the president is actually elected by the Electoral College, established in 1789 by the Constitution. The Constitution provides that each state has a certain number of electoral votes, which equals that state’s number of representatives (different for each state) plus the number of senators (always two).

The results of the popular vote and the electoral vote are usually the same, but not always. Five times in the history of the US, the winner of the popular vote for president has lost the election. In the election of 2000, the decision between George W. Bush and Al Gore came down to the twenty-five electoral votes of one state, Florida. And the popular vote in Florida was so close that the Supreme Court finally decided the election.

Election 2016 was a hard year for Joe Biden. It was the first year after Beau’s death. Joe didn’t have the exciting challenge of running for president. And the Obama administration struggled to accomplish their goals. Since the 2014 congressional elections, the Republicans had had majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and they were determined to block Obama at every turn.

In March 2016, Obama had nominated Judge Merrick Garland to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Judge Garland was considered highly qualified, and he was politically moderate, which Obama thought would make him acceptable to the conservatives. But the Republican Senate refused to consider the nomination, claiming that a president should not appoint a new justice during his last year in office.

And when Hillary Clinton lost the election in November, it was the crowning blow to Obama and Biden. If Clinton had been the next president, they could have been sure that she would carry forward their work. With Donald Trump in the White House, they could be sure he would not.

One of Barack Obama’s last acts as president was to throw a surprise party for Joe Biden. It was January 12, 2017, eight days before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Biden was told that he and Jill were invited to meet Barack and Michelle for a quiet toast to their eight-year partnership. But when Joe saw the spacious White House State Dining Room filled with guests and TV cameras, he knew something was up.

However, even when Obama called him up to the podium, even when he named Joe Biden “the best vice president America’s ever had,” Biden still didn’t know what Obama was going to do. After an affectionate, teasing speech full of praise for Joe as a friend and a public servant, Barack sprung the real surprise. He was awarding Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As Obama hung the medal around his neck, Joe looked stunned. He knew he was supposed to say something, but for once he was speechless. It took him several minutes to pull himself together. Finally he answered the president’s tribute with a heartfelt reply.

In the long history of US presidents and their vice presidents, there had never been a pair like Barack and Joe. They were not just two politicians yoked together to balance the Democratic or Republican ticket. They were working partners—but not only partners, either. They were close and loving friends.

“Promise Me, Dad”

Was Joe Biden’s political career at an end? In January 2017, as Joe and Jill left the vice president’s residence, many people assumed so. After all, the next election was in 2020, the year that Biden would turn seventy-eight. If elected, he would be the oldest president in US history by several years.

But he still wanted the job. Biden thought—and even said publicly—that he believed he could have won the 2016 election: “I thought I was a great candidate.” He said frankly that he never thought Hillary Clinton was a great candidate, although he thought she would have been a good president.

In November 2017, Joe Biden published a new book, Promise Me, Dad, about Beau’s illness and death. “Promise me, Dad,” was what Beau had demanded of his father. Beau wanted to know that whatever happened to him, his father would be “all right.” And Joe had promised, giving “my word as a Biden.”

What did “all right” mean? Joe believed it meant that he could not give up on life. And the two most important things in his life had always been his family and his work. His life’s work, in government, might not be over. He could run for president one more time, in 2020.

During the next four years, the Trump administration set about to roll back all the achievements of the eight Obama-Biden years. He immediately announced his intention to destroy the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). He called the danger of global climate change a “hoax,” and he threatened to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, in which the nations of the world had agreed to reduce their greenhouse gases. President Trump seemed determined to push away America’s closest allies. He talked of leaving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a key alliance between the US and western Europe since 1949.

With the help of the Republican-majority Congress, President Trump passed legislation giving large tax breaks to the wealthy. He appointed