On the morning of Saturday, Nov 7, many of us felt a weight lift off our shoulders as we heard the news that Joe Biden had just won the Presidential Election. This week-long race was filled with confusion and anxieties about what would occur in the next weeks, months and years after this election. In the next few months, we still start to see Biden’s plans develop. However, the biggest question will be what actions will be passed and what will be stopped? Although this was a major victory for the Democratic party, women, LGBTQIA and POC who have been misrepresented and oppressed in the nation, we will need to ensure that new President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris uphold the promises they made for their people.
As the global pandemic continues to be ignored by President Trump, what Biden decides to do to handle this will be a large conversation. Throughout the Biden campaign, his team discussed a science-led plan to mitigate COVID-19, with a national mask mandate, expanding testing and contact tracing and increasing financial assistance and alleviating large medical bills. On Monday, Nov 9, Biden tweeted “Today, I have named a COVID-19 Transition Advisory Board, comprised of distinguished public health experts, to help our transition team translate the Biden-Harris COVID-19 plan into a blueprint we can put into place as soon as @KamalaHarris and I are sworn into office.” This makes Americans hopeful for his first steps in managing the pandemic in the nation. For healthcare in general, Biden also wants to create a medicare-like public option that would provide health coverage for all Americans.
Another concern surrounds environmental changes considering President Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement and our country is currently in a vital period in protecting our environment before there are irreversible damages. Biden has proposed a $2 trillion investment in clean-energy including strategies such as meeting energy-efficiency standards in buildings, hitting net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, installing solar panels and making new wind turbines.
Considering Trump’s presidency saw extreme police brutality, racial targeting and criminal injustice, the country is enraged by how this violence has been handled. The Black Lives Matter movement saw major pushback against all police systems. Even though Biden doesn’t want to fully defund the police, he wants to create reforms that reduce incarceration rates, limit the sale of weapons to police departments and create a federal corp of unarmed first responders. He also wants to abolish the death penalty and allow states to legalize recreational marijuana.
Biden called Trump’s actions on immigration an “unrelenting assault” and that he will work to “undo the damage.” During Trump’s presidency, he removed DACA, a program that allowed people brought to the U.S. as children to remain legal residents. Trump also enforced a “public charge rule” which denied visas or permanent residency to people using public services such as Medicaid, food stamps or housing vouchers. Biden wants to immediately reestablish DACA and simultaneously discard the “public charge rule.”
There are many changes that Biden is hoping to implement as soon as he takes office. Although he now holds head of state, there may be many obstacles. If the senate wins another Democratic seat, it will swing left which would increase the chances of Biden’s plans being passed. Also, the Supreme Court is another barrier, as it is majority Republican. Overall, it will need both the people and Democratic leaders demanding that Biden stay true to his promises.