Biden’s first day is a promising start to normal, but normal isn’t good enough

HIMAJA REDDY: Last Wednesday, President Joe Biden commenced his first day in office with a virtual ceremony that lacked no amount of pomp. The lineup for entertainment included Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, and an audience filled with past presidents (not including former President Donald Trump to the surprise of none) and stunningly spoken US National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman. However, his first day was not only filled with the traditional ceremonies of a swearing-in. Mere hours after his inaugural speech calling for racial justice and pandemic relief among other things, Biden set to deliver the promises he outlined in his inauguration on the first day of his presidency itself with a series of 17 executive orders, memorandums and requests.

His decisive first day set the tone for his administration as one set to directly reverse the Trump era’s harmful policies, one that is determined for a return to normalcy reminiscent of the Obama era, while also being eager to tackle the pressing issues of the current health crisis. His first set of unilateral actions called for a nationwide mask and physical distancing mandate on federal grounds, the reinstallment of the National Security Council's global health unit and the cancellation of the U.S.'s withdrawal from the World Health Organization among other things. Biden's urgency regarding the pandemic is not only a welcome embracing of the scientific community, as reiterated by Dr. Anthony Fauci (now the U.S. delegate to the WHO) during his return to the White House press room, but a sign that the U.S. is ready to cooperate on the global stage once more.

Biden also tackled immigration on his first day, hinting towards significant reform of the broken immigration system in the coming four (or possibly eight) years. His first day saw the repeal of Trump's "Muslim ban" that barred travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, ceased the construction of the border wall, a memorandum to preserve DACA and suspend deportations for certain individuals for the next 100 days. In addition, Biden introduced an ambitious reform bill to Congress that calls for a citizenship path for undocumented residents, a beacon of hope for the U.S's nearly 11 million immigrants whose legal statuses have been repeatedly weaponized as a political bargaining tool throughout the past few years.

Biden continued his enthusiasm and urgency further, continuing action against the climate crisis as promised throughout his campaign by rejoining the Paris Agreement while canceling the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. His actions were a welcome reversal from the previous administration's assault of the environment and denials of its deterioration. The President also continued on to reaffirm equity and fairness in the federal government through various orders for internal reviews.

Biden's first day was a sign that his campaign promise wasn't just lip service to a voter base hungry for change but true efforts towards a return to Obama era policies that actively pushed for climate action, racial equality, immigration reform and more. However, a return to normalcy is not enough. President Obama's eight years in office, unfairly idealized by the left, still saw a massive uptick in the use of drone strikes accompanied by hundreds of civilian deaths, an unaddressed rise in domestic terrorism, a glaring absence of police reform and the continued endurance of systemic issues that America is still grappling with.

The country that voted for Biden wants and needs more than a return to normalcy: it demands deep and widespread changes that eliminates the deep systemic issues that plague American society. The absence of the Trump administration cannot be cause for unbridled exuberance when the underlying fissures that led his rise in the first place persist. Nonetheless, Biden's first day in office offers the country hope the President will continue to govern with this urgency and ferocity in combating the very issues he was elected to change.

Himaja Reddy is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service and a prospective Global Business major. She is from Columbus, Ohio and is interested in the Middle East and South Asia.