We deserve more normal life, give us something, US citizens urge President elect Joe Biden

 

'Give something back to all of us: a normal life'

 

Angela Merkel’s faith in America was deeply shaken when Donald Trump won the US presidency in 2016. The German Chancellor who grew up behind the Iron Curtain was quicker than most to perceive his threat to the kind of US global leadership that has traditionally underwritten European security. Had Hillary Clinton won in 2016, Merkel may well have opted not to run for a fourth term. But she would not retire with Trump in the White House, seeing him as a peril to the West, its common values and security architecture like NATO.

A sense of relief four years later pulsed through her congratulatory message to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. “Joe Biden brings with him decades of experience in domestic and foreign policy. He knows Germany and Europe well,” Merkel said in her first televised address since the US election.

Her greeting envisages America returning as an assertive global leader to tackle the “major challenges of our time” like climate change, the pandemic, terrorism, trade and the economy, “side by side” with Europe. But Merkel also understands that Trump’s presidency, attacks on NATO and reasonable demands for Europe to pay more for its own defense reflect political dynamics within the US that mean the old halcyon days of American protection aren’t coming back -- even if Russia remains a vigorous adversary. 

“We Germans and Europeans understand that we must take on more responsibilities in this partnership in the 21st century. America remains our most important ally, but it rightfully expects more effort from us to guarantee our own security and to defend our values around the world,” Merkel said. 

The “Chancellor of the Free World” does not plan to run for reelection again. That could leave Biden as one of the last active politicians whose worldviews were shaped by the Cold War. Not enough strategic thinking has been done so far on either side of the Atlantic on how to evolve the world’s most effective alliance for the 21st century, especially with the US increasingly looking to China as its most important foreign policy issue. 

The end of Trump’s “America First” nationalism buys the West a little time to accelerate that thinking. But the urgent questions he posed are not going away.

A Guatemala government drone captured destruction left by Eta in Alta Verapaz.

'Give something back to all of us: a normal life'

President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced the members of his coronavirus task force and implored Americans to get in line with basic public health precautions, like mask-wearing and social-distancing. "The goal of mask-wearing is not to make your life less comfortable or take something away from you. It's to give something back to all of us: a normal life," he said, adding, "It won't be forever." The new task force includes Dr. Rick Bright, the vaccine development director from the Trump administration who says his early warnings about the pandemic were ignored.

First pups

 

President-elect Biden is poised to restore a time-honored tradition to the White House this January: first pups. Champ and Major Biden, both German shepherds, will join the elite ranks of Socks Clinton, Barney Bush, Macaroni Kennedy and Rebecca Raccoon Coolidge, among others, when they move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

 

One more Washington norm was broken by President Trump in 2016 when he opted against a pet for the White House. The tradition dates back to Thomas Jefferson, who kept a mockingbird and a couple of bear cubs during his presidency. Throughout the years, presidential pets became celebrities of sorts.

 

"It softens (presidents') image, it broadens their appeal," Ed Lengel, a former chief historian at the White House Historical Association, told CNN in 2017. "They help create an atmosphere of the White House as a family, a lived-in place and not just a stiff museum, but a place where a family lives and plays and enjoys each other's company."

 

The early history of White House pets was not well-documented, but many animals were given as gifts. President James Buchanan was reportedly given a herd of elephants, and President Martin Van Buren received a pair of tiger cubs. On Thanksgiving 1926, a supporter in Mississippi gave the Coolidge family a raccoon, whom first lady Grace Coolidge named "Rebecca" and walked on a bedazzled leash. 

 

First pets also included farm animals, hunting dogs and horses in stables on White House grounds. President Woodrow Wilson kept a flock of sheep and a ram on the White House lawn, and President William Howard Taft had a Holstein cow named Pauline Wayne. President Warren Harding's Airedale terrier, Laddie Boy, had his own chair in the Roosevelt Room for Cabinet meetings.

 

But they're not without their risks. Among President Theodore Roosevelt's nearly 30 pets, a bulldog named Pete made headlines and nearly caused an international incident by tearing the pants off a French ambassador.