2020 has been the year of the infamous coronavirus, protests for all sorts of things, the “Black Lives Matter” movement, and especially politics. The year of 2020 was an important year for politics because it is not only an election year, but the election that would decide whether or not the controversial president of the United States, Donald Trump, would get a second term or it would go to former vice president Joe Biden.
This year has seen seemingly everything turn political, largely in part to the major disagreements between the right and left sides in politics, the two main opposing parties.
Trump is a member of the republican party, the right, and Joe Biden is a member of the democratic party, the left. Biden was vice president from Barack Obama’s presidency, which was two terms.
A presidential term is four years, making a second term an extra four years on top of that. If a president completes two terms, they are no longer eligible to run for office again. Trump won the election against Hilary Clinton back in 2016, marking the start to his journey being president for the first time. Clinton won the popular vote but ultimately the electoral votes gave Trump the win.
Previously, Trump was a businessman and had also been known as a television personality. He was famously on the cast of reality show “The Apprentice,” which ran from 2004-2017 and was all about challenging Ivy League graduates and entrepreneurs’ intelligence and street-smarts.
When running for president, the two selected nominees choose who they would be taking into office with them as the vice president. This year Trump’s choice was Mike Pence while Biden chose Kamala Harris.
Most people agreed that chaos struck during the preisdential debate, noting that it was hard to keep up with the two candidates with them speaking over each other. The two candidates argued back and forth for most of the debate. Biden even asked Trump to shut up at one point.
Since there’s a pandemic in the midst, the country allowed mail-in ballots for this election, which ended up being very useful. Leading up to the election day, both aspiring presidents continued to make speeches across the country as they geared up for their fate. Social media flooded with celebrities and influencers of all sorts encouraging their followers to go out and vote if they hadn’t already done so through the mail-in option. The voting turnout ended up being a record breaking number this election.
Once election day finally came, it was predicted that the results wouldn’t be in the same day, especially because not all the mail-in votes were not received yet. The votes were counted from election day, November 3, lasting all the way until the winner was announced on November 7. After running unsuccessfully in 1988 and 2008, Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
Tweets, Facebook statuses, videos, and just about any type of social media posts have been shared across platforms of people expressing their opinions towards Biden’s win. Many videos have been posted from Biden’s supporters, of them screaming, dancing, some even crying. Biden’s American supporters as well as people from other countries that were not fans of Trump also expressed excitement with videos of people waving flags and dancing in the streets being shared all over.
However, Trump and his supporters did not share the same emotions towards the news. Biden being the president-elect did not sit well with current president Trump, though. Trump took to Twitter, an app he is known for ranting on very often, to tell the world he won the U.S. election. He has since continued to claim the election was rigged, and that he had won by a lot, proceeding to request recounts in some states. It has certainly been very controversial, how Trump has reacted to how things have played out. Before it was announced Biden had won president-elect, Trump also sued in 3 of the states he lost in. The Trump administration has been said to not be cooperating with Biden in giving him any information he will need leading up to inauguration day in January.
Biden gave his first speech since winning president-elect on November 7, bringing his family and selected vice president Kamala Harris out on stage to end the night. Harris has now made history not only for being the first female vice-president, but for also being the first woman of color to hold the title. Harris spoke on November 7 as well, right before Biden gave his speech.
“You chose hope and unity, decency, science, and, yes, truth.” Harris said. “You chose Joe Biden as the next president of the United States of America. Joe is a healer, a unite, a tested and steady hand, a person whose own experience of loss gives him a sense of purpose that will help us as a nation reclaim our own sense of purpose, and a man with a big heart who loves with abandon.”
Harris spoke of Biden’s experience of loss in reference to his wife and daughter passing away, as well as his son in 2015. She also gave a shoutout to her mother, who passed away in 2009. Harris finished off her speech introducing Biden to the podium.
“I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but unify, who doesn’t see red states and blue states, only sees the United States, and work with all my heart, with the confidence of the whole people, to win the confidence of all of you.” Biden said. “For that is what America, I believe, is about. It’s abbot people. And that’s what our administration will be all about.”
Biden shared his gratitude with those who supported him, as well as those who did not.
“For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight.” Biden said. “I’ve lost a couple of times myself. But now let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again. To make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They’re Americans.”
Students weigh in on how they felt about the 2020 election turnout. Senior Lindsey Killian was happy about the results.
“I’m happy Biden won,” Killian said. “I believe he’ll put forth action about the pandemic.”
Fellow senior Mary Tuzinsky also would like more action for handling the pandemic.
“I think Trump and his team did an irresponsible job handling COVID-19,” Tuzinsky said. “I will not say it was his fault for the spread but his actions led to a large divide by mocking democratic governors and ignoring CDC guidelines by holding rallies and not to mention his complete disregard for masks. He made COVID-19 a political matter while over 318,000 lives have been lost.”
Whether you are a Biden supporter or a Trump supporter, it is important to remember that everybody is trying to do what they think is best for America.