This Saturday Joe Biden became the 46th president of the United States by defeating Donald Trump, who was looking for a second term at the head of the country. Biden is already a ‘big shot’ on the US political scene, but the victory still has a special flavor.
Discreetly, the new president could not contrast more with his predecessor, starting with Joe Biden’s humble beginnings. Looking at Biden’s profile and biography, it is also possible to trace a life marked by tragedy, but also by resilience and recovery, even on the worst of occasions. A man of hope, he faces the challenge of the Covid-19 pandemic that devastates the country, and the world.
Joe Robinette Biden Jr. He was born in November 1942, into a traditional Irish and Catholic family, on the outskirts of Scranton, Pennsylvania – precisely the state that came to guarantee him victory in the presidential elections.
His father was a car salesman, but when the 1950s crisis hits the city, unemployment comes and the Biden family is forced to move to Delaware. Joe was 10, but his father was already an inspiration there.
“He always said to me: ‘Champion, when they send you down, you get up soon'”, admits the new president of the USA.
It was in Delaware that it grew in politics. As a teenager, he was a lifeguard in a social neighborhood, which gave him an insight into the country’s social and economic inequalities. He studied law at the University of Delaware and at the University of Syracuse; the fact that he was not trained at one of the ‘elite’ universities is a source of pride for Biden.
It takes a lifetime to be enjoyed by a speech problem: stuttering. Targeted by bullying, they called him ‘Dash’ maliciously (it means ‘speed up’) schoolmates. But he has overcome the problem and has even provided counseling to young people who suffer from the same problem.
With a career as a lawyer and attorney, he married Nellia Hunter in 1966. Tragedy struck the family in 1972. Nellia and little Naomi, the couple’s daughter, just one year old, died in a road accident when they left for the Christmas shopping.
The other two children, Robert and Beau, are injured in the accident. Biden stays in charge of the family and even considers abandoning his political career.
He finds comfort in a new love, Jill Jacobs, who only in 1975, and after 5 marriage proposals, agrees to marry Biden. The relationship brought him a daughter, Ashley, and a new lease on life. He tries a first trial as a Democratic candidate in 1987 and fails. I was going to run 20 years later, with Barack Obama as an opponent, and who would become a US president.
Bama saw his opponent as a strong advisor and, therefore, made him an ally in the campaign. It was while vice president, in 2015, that Biden suffered a heavy blow again.
Son Beau, also with a brilliant political career, dies at 46 after a hard fight with brain cancer
Joe Biden married Jill 45 years ago after a family tragedy: the Democrat lost his first wife, Neilia, and his only one-year-old daughter, Naomi, in a car accident in 1972. The other two sons, Beau and Hunter, survived the collision with serious injuries. Something that made Joe Biden consider leaving the political career. However, in 1975, and only after five marriage proposals, Jill agreed to marry Joe Biden, assumed the role of mentor to his children and was always on the side of her husband’s career, as in the first presidential candidacy, in 1987, and in the vice presidency of Barack Obama’s term.
Ashley’s mother, daughter in common with Joe Biden, Jill was also beside her husband when, in 2015, he lost Beau, the oldest son, victim of brain cancer at 46.
Biden admits that the death of a relative almost proved to be enough for the end of his political career, but with the family he found the strength to continue. He accompanied Obama in his second term and, for the presidential candidates this year, beat the most radical party competitors, such as Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.
Despite the ordeal and the tragedy, the effort, resilience and dedication turned out to be powerful weapons, which were able to lead Joe Biden to the White House.
– .
