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And 48% said Kaine had a better understanding of the issues, edging out Pence at 41%. Clinton topped Trump by a better than 2-to-1 margin on that score after their first debate

Most debate watchers said Kaine did the better job defending Hillary Clinton, 58%, while just 35% thought Pence better defended Donald Trump.

Still, 29% of debate watchers said what they saw Tuesday made them more apt to vote for Trump, compared with 18% who said it made them more likely to back Clinton. Most debate watchers, 53%, said their vote was not swayed by Tuesday's face off. After the first Clinton-Trump debate last week, 34% said it made them more apt to vote Clinton, 18% Trump.

Pence was largely seen as the more likeable candidate on the stage, 53% to 37%,

Both men are broadly judged qualified to take over the office of president if needed, 77% say Pence is qualified, 70% that Kaine is. Most voters who watched Tuesday night said Kaine's positions on the issues are about right ideologically (57%) while 36% see him as too liberal and 5% too conservative. Assessing Pence's positions, about half, 49%, think he's about right, 46% too conservative and just 3% too liberal.

But what, exactly, is she supposed to do? She confronts the confines in which a vice president has to operate on top of the similar confines in which Black people and women in positions of power are often expected to operate. It’s a Goldilocks double or even triple whammy. Too strong a voice and you’re stepping outside of your place. Too soft a voice and you’re timidly failing to rise to the occasion.

She’s very aware that her being in this position is a threat to many people,” Valerie Jarrett, who was a senior adviser to Obama during his presidency, told me

Inside Washington, D.C., Corker is seen as a serious policy pro. Most importantly for Trump, perhaps, he’s been one of the few Republicans in Washington who has said he would be fine with supporting Trump.

She didn’t endorse anyone ahead of the Iowa caucuses — although she introduced US Senator Marco Rubio at an event. Ernst was also quite critical of Trump’s comments about women, but that might actually be an asset as he seeks to make up ground with female voters.

No matter what words have been said during the primary, a Kasich pick would makes sense for both Kasich and Trump.

Consider this math: If the Democratic nominee wins all the states the party won in the last six presidential elections, and then wins Florida, Trump will lose in the Electoral College.

It does make some sense politically: Christie was the first establishment politician to endorse Trump, and he took a lot of heat for it.

Trump doesn’t need Christie anymore.

here is no indication that Ryan would ever accept another ride on the national ticket as a vice presidential candidate, let alone for Trump.

our elite debate has become far less focused on individual issues as such, and the complicated variety of positions, left, right and center, any thinking individual can take. It has become rather an elaborate and sophisticated version of “Which side are you on?”

An analysis of American National Election Studies data from 1964 to 2012 shows that education is related to decreases in interethnic/interracial prejudice, but also to increases in ideological (liberal vs. conservative) prejudice

But even this doesn’t capture the emotional intensity of it all, or the way it compounds over time

In their 2015 paper, “Losing Hurts: The Happiness Impact of Partisan Electoral Loss,” the authors found that the grief of Republican partisans after their party lost the presidential election in 2012 was twice that of “respondents with children” immediately after “the Newtown shootings” and “respondents living in Boston” after “the Boston Marathon bombings.”

That’s an intense emotion, and it’s that intensity, it seems to me, that is corroding the norms of liberal democracy

I find myself instinctually siding with the independent artist in these cases, perhaps because I’ve had to fight for my own individuality apart from my own various identities, most of my life. It wasn’t easy being the first openly gay editor of anything in Washington when I was in my 20s. But it was harder still to be someone not defined entirely by my group, to be a dissident within it, a pariah to many, even an oxymoron, because of my politics or my faith.

Friendly dissidents are no longer interesting or quirky; as the stakes appear to rise, they come to seem dangerous, even contagious

And before we even know it, we live in an atmosphere closer and closer to that of The Crucible, where politics merges into a new kind of religious warfare, dissent becomes heresy, and the response to a blasphemer among us is a righteous, metaphorical burning at the stake

I think that’s the real context for understanding why magazines and newspapers and websites of opinion are increasingly resistant to ideological diversity within their own universes

The dynamic here is deeply tribal. It’s an atmosphere in which the individual is always subordinate to the group, in which the “I” is allowed only when licensed by the “we.

Hence the somewhat hysterical reaction, for example, to Kanye West’s recent rhetorical antics. I’m not here to defend West. He may be a musical genius (I’m in no way qualified to judge) but he is certainly a jackass, and saying something like “slavery was a choice” is so foul and absurd it’s self-negating

And yet. There was something about the reaction that just didn’t sit right with me, something too easy, too dismissive of an individual artist’s right to say whatever he wants, to be accountable to no one but himself. It had a smack of raw tribalism to it, of collective disciplining, of the group owning the individual, and exacting its revenge for difference.

It has been made far, far worse by this president, a figure whose election was both a symptom and a cause of this collective emotional unraveling, where the frontal cortex is so flooded by tribal signals that compromise feels like treason, opponents feel like enemies, and demagogues feel like saviors

I believed in an identity politics that would aim to leave identity behind, to achieve a citizenship without qualification.

I’m not whining about this experience, just explaining why I tend to side reflexively with the individual when he is told he isn’t legit by the group. In that intimidating atmosphere, I’m with the dissenter, the loner, and the outlier.

It makes a liberal politics that rests on a common good close to impossible. It makes a liberal discourse not only unachievable but increasingly, in the hearts and minds of our very elites, immoral.

I bristle because, of course, Coates is not merely subjecting West to “expectation and scrutiny” which should apply to anyone and to which no one should object; he is subjecting West to anathematization, to expulsion from the ranks.

Just as a Puritan would suddenly exclaim that a heretic has been taken over by the Devil and must be expelled, so Coates denounces West for seeking something called “white freedom”: … freedom without consequence, freedom without criticism, freedom to be proud and ignorant; freedom to profit off a people in one moment and abandon them in the next; a Stand Your Ground freedom, freedom without responsibility, without hard memory; a Monticello without slavery, a Confederate freedom, the freedom of John C. Calhoun, not the freedom of Harriet Tubman, which calls you to risk your own; not the freedom of Nat Turner, which calls you to give even more, but a conqueror’s freedom, freedom of the strong built on antipathy or indifference to the weak, the freedom of rape buttons, pussy grabbers, and fuck you anyway, bitch; freedom of oil and invisible wars, the freedom of suburbs drawn with red lines, the white freedom of Calabasas.

Leave aside the fact that the passage above essentializes and generalizes “whiteness” as close to evil, a sentiment that applied to any other ethnicity would be immediately recognizable as raw bigotry.

Leave aside its emotional authenticity and rhetorical dazzle.

Notice rather that the surrender of the individual to the we is absolute.

That “we” he writes of doesn’t merely influence or inform or shape the individual artist; it “dictates” to him.

it’s at that point that I’d want to draw the line. Because it’s an important line, and without it, a liberal society is close to impossible.

I understand that the freedom enjoyed by a member of an unreflective majority is easier than the freedom of someone in a small minority, and nowhere in America is that truer than in the world of black and white.

But that my own freedom was harder to achieve doesn’t make it any less precious, or sacrosanct. I’d argue it actually makes it more vivid, more real, than it might be for someone who never questioned it.

And I am never going to concede it to “straightness,” the way Coates does to “whiteness.”

As an individual, I seek my own freedom, period. Being gay is integral to who I am, but it doesn’t define who I am. There is no gay freedom or straight freedom, no black freedom or white freedom; merely freedom, a common dream, a universalizing, individual experience.

“Liberation from the dictates of the we” is everyone’s birthright in America, and it is particularly so for anyone in the creative fields of music or writing.

A free artist owes nothing to anyone, especially his own tribe. And if you take the space away from him to be exactly what he wants to be, in all his contradictions and complexity, you are eradicating something critical to a free and healthy society.

Freedom, in this worldview, does not and cannot unite Americans of all races; neither can music. Because there is no category of simply human freedom possible in America, now or ever. There is only tribe. And the struggle against the other tribe. And this will never end.

And that, of course, is one of the most dangerous aspects of our elite political polarization: It maps onto the even-deeper tribalism of race, in an age when racial diversity is radically increasing, and when the racial balance of power is shifting under our feet.

That makes political tribalism even less resolvable and even more combustible.

I never believed that the gay rights movement was about liberating people to be gay; I believed it was about liberating people to be themselves, in all their complexity and uniqueness.

The promise of Obama — the integrating, reasoned, moderate promise of incremental progress — has become the depraved and toxic zero-sum culture of Trump.

"It’s not her full-responsibility job, but she is leading the effort because I think the best thing to do is to put someone who, when he or she speaks, they don’t have to wonder about, is that where the president is," Biden said, according to The Washington Post. "When she speaks, she speaks for me."

The charge of double standards points to a steep learning curve for a party that has struggled to keep pace with shifting public attitudes towards gender roles, power dynamics and sexual boundaries.

Just as the instant deification then instant demonisation of Cuomo has left many crying out for nuance and complexity, so it can be said that no two cases of sexual harassment in politics are quite the same.

This time, although Gillibrand said Cuomo’s alleged conduct was “completely unacceptable”, she stopped short of demanding he resign before the investigation is done

“The vice-president’s view is that she believes all women should be treated with respect. Their voices should be heard. They should tell their story. There’s an independent investigation that is happening now, being overseen by the New York attorney general, and she certainly supports that.”

But this puts Democratic leaders out of step with groups such as Women’s March, which was born out of the January 2017 protests against Donald Trump, who faced numerous allegations of sexual assault and harassment

“We share the view that there should be an independent investigation but Cuomo himself has not even denied many of the harassment allegations and, for us, it’s about behaviour that is disqualifying. It could be illegal, but it also could not be illegal.”

That same year, Gillibrand became the first Democratic senator to call for her Minnesota colleague Al Franken to quit over allegations of sexual misconduct. She was joined by others including Kamala Harris, who tweeted: “Sexual harassment and misconduct should not be allowed by anyone and should not occur anywhere. I believe the best thing for Senator Franken to do is step down.”Franken did just that, but some critics now believe that he was the victim of a rush to judgment and should have been allowed to wait for the results of an investigation.

In 2018 Eric Schneiderman, an attorney general of New York lauded as a liberal advocate of women’s rights, resigned after being accused of physically abusing four women. Cuomo was among those who were quick to call for him to step down.

Trump’s nominee to the supreme court, Brett Kavanaugh, was nearly derailed by allegations from Dr Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her

In 2019 several women accused Biden of making unwanted physical contact.

Last year Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer, alleged that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. He vehemently denied the claim, which remained unsubstantiated and faded from the election race. Biden picked a woman – Harris – as his running mate and often highlighted his work as lead sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act.

Larry Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “In hindsight, a number of the Democrats in the Senate who had pushed him to step down later expressed regret. They realised they moved too quickly, they didn’t know enough and the punishment didn’t really fit what they later learnt to be the misbehaviour.”

sexual

“I don’t think the Republican party is in any position to be lecturing anyone about how to handle sexual harassment. They seem to have actually gotten real expertise on how to evade it.”

“Just because we fire Andrew Cuomo and Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, that doesn’t alone solve the problem. The bigger problem is still there, which is that harassment is seen as an acceptable part of our culture. That’s why so many of these people in power are doing it. So yes, we need to respond and uproot harassment wherever it lies but we also need to keep our eye on the ball.”

In terms of who this guy is and who you are absolutely nothing has changed. And yet here you are—arguing with him on Twitter or Facebook. And you, yourself, are being brought to the brink of insanity. But you can’t seem to stop. You have to respond or read the comments of the other people responding and your cortisol and adrenaline levels are spiking and your blood pressure is rising and you’re suddenly at risk of a heart attack

And the ugly truth is that you’ve become addicted to arguing with the “End Is Nigh” sandwich board guy

Anti-vaccers, anti-maskers, Qanon, cancel-culture, Alex Jones, flat-earthers, racists, anti-racists, anti-anti-racists, and of course the Twitter stylings of our Dear Leader.

Back in 2011 Chamath Palihapitiya left Facebook and said of his former company, “It literally is a point now where I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”

I’m here to make the case that all modern social, political, and sociological ills can be traced to social media. It is single-handedly responsible for the tearing apart of our social fabric which Palihapitiya so presciently predicted

It’s not “part of” the problem. It is the problem: An insidious malware slowly corrupting our society in ways that are extremely difficult to quantify, but the effects of which are evident all around us.

maybe you don’t even know why you’re doing it. But you can’t stop, won’t stop.

(2) The unfortunate reality that media organizations are so starved for content that every time something outrageous garners a small buzz on social media they immediately project and amplify it out to the masses.

(1) The fact that your phone in your pocket guarantees that you can get your fix at every minute of every day.

Before the internet people socialized in relatively small, geographically constrained groups. They had friends and colleagues and relatives and they communicated with these people largely in person or via the phone using the rules of engagement that have been evolving generations.

Of course, these are patently insane ideas that don’t deserve consideration. But there you are considering them

These include facial movements, and vocal intonation or more global cues such as “does this person look and smell like they haven’t showered for a week?” These are tried and true and essential components to a healthy social “network.”

In such an environment the only place for the “End Is Nigh” guy to get an audience is on the street corner

But along came the internet and the EIN guy became an anonymous Internet denizen who could insert himself into conversations across the globe. First he did this on listservs and chat rooms and message boards. Then he did it in the comments sections. And with the advent of social media, he did it right in your face, courtesy of The Algorithm

EIN guy is now just part of the crowd. And what’s worse, while every town has one EIN guy, the internet has allowed all of the EIN guys to find each other so that now they think they’re just as normal as everyone else.

Now you’re doubting yourself, too, because it’s one thing to ignore one crazy guy—but a crazy movement?

No—you can’t ignore that—it’s your duty as a responsible citizen to quash it before it gets out of control and you don’t even realize that instead of quashing it, you’re now part of it.

Because what EIN guy always wanted—more than anything—was for the normies to stop walking past him. He wanted them to notice him and argue with him because that would be a sign that what he had to say was important and legitimate.

Social media has made it possible for deranged people to break through what I think of as the holistic herd immunity of sanity which geography has traditionally conferred

And once they broke through, thanks to social media, the traditional media decided to start elevating them.

journalistic outlets now rush out to broadcast anything weird enough to draw an audience

Maybe the earth is flat?! Maybe Qanon is right?! Maybe vaccines are super dangerous ?!

it’s all brought to you exclusively and specifically by social media. It is exacerbated by two things:

So what’s the answer? It’s shockingly simple. Leave all social media. Try it for one month.

There are very real actions that social media companies can take to help move things back towards sanity. People like Tristan Harris and Jaron Lanier and Roger McNamee have been discussing this for years. But social media companies aren’t going to do anything helpful so long as the incentive structure is what it is today.

Like most evil things that are bad for you, social media has enough attractive, useful, and even beneficial components to give you the false impression that it’s actually a good thing. Or at least harmless

In the future, we may be able to defang and declaw it and everyone can have it as a pet. But that’s somewhere down the road when Mark Zuckerberg isn’t the most powerful man in the world.

But Trump increased that number to roughly 44 percent, which included posts in some countries that usually went to career diplomats, such Thailand and Kenya.

John McCain; longtime Biden friend and former Sen. Chris Dodd; and Comcast executive David Cohen. Richard Perkins, a donor and former speaker of the Nevada Assembly, told POLITICO that he is lobbying to be the top U.S. diplomat in Canada.

There are some who do a lot for the campaign and they don’t have a lot of experience in government and you want to take care of them and what the fuck else are you going to do with them?”

Instead, the White House has been focused on pushing Covid legislation through Congress and compiling lists of nominees for judgeships and attorneys general. Biden has named only one ambassador thus far: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a former State Department official and ambassador, to the United Nations.

Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), a Democratic fundraiser who served as ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, said he’s received calls from about a dozen donors in recent weeks trying to determine their next steps.

On Wednesday, Biden will meet virtually with Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, though no ambassador is expected to be named.

We continue to engage in conversations with the White House and we've been gratified that our counterparts understand and value the importance of career professionals in senior roles, including ambassadorships,” a senior State Department official said when asked about the status of the situation.

“When you talk to [donors], get them in a private room and off guard, they’ll be real open to the fact that they’re looking to get something out of it,” according to a donor. “Is it openly spoken about? No, but it’s pretty clear.”

“He is a guy who has come through the long Democratic tradition, but unlike Trump, I think he’s going to pick career people for very important posts,” a Biden ally said.

They also hope the administration considers placing career appointees in high-profile but challenging ambassadorships in Russia and China.

Saudi Arabian officials, for example, have often preferred having a political appointee because such figures are more likely to have a direct line to the president. But given the Biden administration’s efforts to de-emphasize the U.S.-Saudi relationship, placing a career diplomat in Riyadh could essentially tell the Saudis that they won’t get backchannels to Biden or special favors.

“No other country has nearly half its ambassadorships vacant, or ever has. This hurts our ability to defend our national interests and pursue our national objectives,” said Eric Rubin, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the diplomats’ union.

It’s like political phantom limbs. He doesn't have the same political infrastructure he did three months ago as president,” added GOP strategist Matt Gorman, who previously served as communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Instead, Trump has maintained close ties to GOP officials who have committed to supporting incumbents, stayed almost entirely out of the spotlight, delivered fairly anodyne remarks the one time he emerged, and offered only sparse criticism of his successor, Joe Biden.

Trump has gone from threatening party bodies for using his name and likeness in their fundraising efforts to offering up his Mar-a-Lago estate as a host site for part of the Republican National Committee’s spring donor retreat. He savagely attacked veteran GOP operative Karl Rove for criticizing his first post-presidency speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee, and endorsed Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who repeatedly scrutinized Trump’s own trade practices while in office.

In his role as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Scott has promised to stick by GOP incumbents — including Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Trump in his Senate trial last month on charges of inciting an insurrection. The Florida Republican said he had a “great meeting” with Trump in a tweet he shared Friday.

“For any normal politician, it would look like he’s trying to have it both ways but really he’s trying to have it his way,” said a former Trump White House official. “He only cares about maintaining his power and his stranglehold over the Republican Party and it doesn’t matter to him how any of the moves he makes affect the long-term success of institutions or individuals other than himself.”

He continues to hold court on the patio of his Mar-a-Lago resort where he is greeted by a standing ovation from members when he and the former first lady walk by. He spends his days monitoring the news, making calls and playing golf at his eponymous club just a few miles away.

But the factions that have already formed among those surrounding him suggest potential turbulence ahead. Three veterans of Trump’s 2020 campaign — Brad Parscale, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark — have been screening primary recruitments and brainstorming ways to reestablish his online presence, while Dave Bossie and Corey Lewandowski are in talks with the ex-president to launch a new fundraising entity on his behalf, according to people briefed on the recent discussions.

One former administration official who has been in contact with Trump described him as a “pinball,” noting that his tendency to abruptly change directions or seize on a new idea after speaking with a friend or outside adviser — a habit that often frustrated aides during his time in office — has carried into his post-presidency life.

The fear among Republicans is that Trump’s indecisiveness will extend to his personal political future as well. Trump has continued to dangle a 2024 run over the party, and the will-he-won’t-he guessing game has held presidential hopefuls in limbo. MOST READ IRS partially shields some stimulus payments from debt reductions MAGA voters discovered a new home online. But it isn't what it seems. Newsom says California recall likely to qualify, tries to soften Feinstein stance McCarthy decries ‘political stunt’ after troops visit lawmaker’s office An unlikely Trump turncoat shows the GOP way to resist his influence

But stripped of a social media platform like Twitter, the former president has had to rely on issuing statements — some mimicking the tone and length of his past tweets — via his post-presidency office or political PAC press lists. So far, he’s issued more than two dozen endorsements and statements since leaving the White House. The more recent ones have bashed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and sought credit for the current Covid-19 vaccine distribution.

When I was talking to the president this morning… he’s like, ‘Yeah, she’s no good. I said that and now everybody’s seeing it. But you realize if you say anything negative about Meghan Markle you get canceled. Look at Piers,’” Miller said, recounting his conversation with Trump, who had been referring to Piers Morgan, the polarizing “Good Morning Britain” host who parted ways with the show this week after dismissing Markle’s revelations as lies.

But so far, many of his recent political maneuverings have been met with a shrug by the GOP. Trump’s public tussle with the Republican Party over fundraising and the use of his name and likeness in appeals for money appeared to fizzle out after attorneys for the Republican National Committee denied Trump’s cease-and-desist demands. By week’s end, the RNC was not only still using Trump’s name in fundraising solicitations, it was offering him up as an enticement.

Democrats introduced a series of measures to censure, investigate and potentially expel members who, in the words of one resolution, “attempted to overturn the results of the election and incited a white supremacist attempted coup.”

What has unfolded instead has been something of an uneasy détente on Capitol Hill, as Democrats reckon with what they experienced that day and struggle to determine whether they can salvage their relationships with Republicans — some of whom continue to cast doubt on the legitimacy of President Biden’s victory — and whether they even want to try.

Republicans have felt the breach as well. Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida, who did not vote to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory but joined a lawsuit challenging the election results, said feelings ran raw after the mob violence at the Capitol.

Many House Republicans have refrained from discussing the attack, while some have tried to rewrite history and argue that they never claimed the election was “stolen,” despite their objections.

Representative Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia, who was in the House gallery on Jan. 6, said she had taken it upon herself to try to facilitate a reconciliation — or at least an airing out of differences.

In the days after the attack, the wounds it laid bare seemed almost too deep to heal. As the mob tore closer to lawmakers on Jan. 6, Representative Dean Phillips, a mild-mannered Minnesota Democrat known for fostering bipartisan relationships, shouted at Republicans, “This is because of you!”

The reluctance stems, at least in part, from politics. Democrats owe their majority to a group of lawmakers from competitive districts who say their constituents elected them to work with Republicans to get legislation done.

“I haven’t talked to a single Republican about that day. Nothing. At all,” said Ms. Wild, who has resumed working with Pennsylvania Republicans on legislation, even though most of them voted to overturn the election.

Adding to the tensions, most Republicans insist that they did nothing wrong, arguing that their push to invalidate the election results was merely an effort to raise concerns about the integrity of the vote.

One Democrat, Representative Brad Schneider of Illinois, recently removed a Republican from a bill the two had worked on together for years, in line with his new policy of collaborating only with lawmakers who publicly state that Mr. Biden was legitimately elected.

Still, Mr. Schneider said that many other Republicans were still questioning Mr. Biden’s legitimacy — and that some were even continuing to put lawmakers at risk with incendiary remarks.

With farmers left in the dust, discrimination against pre-existing conditions returning to insurance coverage and taxes rising for millions, how can Republicans continue to support the president?Simple. They identify with him.

My neighbors misidentify what is holding them back, but they don’t want to correctly identify the actual problem — corporations, billionaires, white privilege, late-stage capitalism — because they hope to be part of that world someday. They think they have rightfully earned it.

He didn’t want to be helped because that meant he might have to help other people he didn’t think of as deserving.

An apparently leaked copy of the publication's February issue cover, shot in front of a pink and green background, began circulating online Sunday. The photo instantly attracted ire on social media for appearing poorly lit and styled, while others suggested it was "disrespectful" to the Vice President-elect.

Vogue "loved the images Tyler Mitchell shot and felt the more informal image captured Vice President-elect Harris's authentic, approachable nature -- which we feel is one of the hallmarks of the Biden/Harris administration.

Explaining the influences behind the cover shoot, Vogue said that the apple green and salmon pink background had been inspired by the colors of Howard University's Alpha Kappa Alpha, the "first historically African American sorority."

The article also said that the Vice President-elect's styling choices "were her own," and that the image "reflects Harris at her casual best."

Playwright and lawyer Wajahat Ali described it as a "mess up," adding that Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour "must really not have Black friends and colleagues."

"Folks are arguing over the photo chosen for VP Harris's Vogue cover, but here's what's important: she looks great, she's being honored, and the cover is driving Trump and Melania nuts,"

The debate comes just over a week before Harris is inaugurated as the first female and first Black and South Asian Vice President. In an accompanying in-depth profile, published online by Vogue on Sunday, Harris recalls the moment the election was called and her subsequent victory speech. She also speaks about climate change and protesting for racial justice.

Elsewhere in the interview, she reiterated that Covid-19 will be the Biden-Harris administration's main priority during its first 100 days.

She said she gets frustrated when she hears about young people flouting social distancing rules. “I think, ‘Because of you guys, I’m stuck in my room. I would like to put you in my room for a week and see how you like it.’”

We waited until 4 p.m. for another test result, also negative, and I got her soon after. She had two bags packed and was practically running out the door — away from the boredom, loneliness, scary and confusing events, unknown staff members with covered faces.

When Covid-19 hit, all family visits were halted. Dorothy was OK at first, already accustomed to the staff feeding her twice a day. But after a while, I think it hit her. Her family was gone. We could not tell her why or where they were. We could not reassure her, although we tried.Dorothy slowly went downhill, and in July, she died. She is the collateral damage, the many who decline simply from the isolation and loss of routine, but most important, from the loss of the people who love them. She was one of many here, and she deserves a voice.

My mother is fortunate that she is in an assisted-living facility that cares. It adheres to the guidelines. Unfortunately, the very rules that keep its residents physically protected do not support their emotional health. There are no easy answers.

That’s an astonishing failure — one that stands out in a year of astonishing failures. The situation is made grimmer by how familiar the underlying narrative is: Poor coordination at the federal level, combined with a lack of funding and support for state and local entities, has resulted in a string of avoidable missteps and needless delays.

The implementation of these shots is complicated by a number of factors, including cold-storage requirements, which in turn necessitate special training for nurses and doctors. Training takes time and money, both of which are in short supply in most states. Some hospitals have said they don’t know which vaccine they are going to receive, or how many doses, or when.

Then came South Carolina. It was the first early contest where a large number of Black voters would register their preferences, and Mr. Biden enjoyed good will with those voters, stemming from his loyal service at the side of President Barack Obama.

When the results came in, he had won — and he had done so decisively, with more than twice as many votes as his closest rival, Mr. Sanders.

On Super Tuesday, Mr. Biden won 10 of 14 states, including some that he never campaigned in. His former rivals continued to coalesce around him over the next week. Senators Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey endorsed Mr. Biden before Michigan’s primary a week later.

Mr. Biden re-emerged on Memorial Day, placing a wreath at a veterans memorial in Wilmington, Del., and wearing a mask, in contrast to how Mr. Trump had been appearing.

The next week, he met with community leaders at a Black church in Wilmington following the death of George Floyd in police custody

His campaign organized occasional in-person events in Delaware and neighboring Pennsylvania that were designed with safety in mind, with large white circles on the ground ensuring social distancing among reporters who attended.

After months of suspense, he selected Ms. Harris, a former rival, to join the Democratic ticket.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris accepted their nominations in front of socially distanced reporters at an event center in Wilmington — a far cry from the packed arena that was supposed to have cheered them on. On the convention’s final night, supporters gathered in their cars as if at a drive-in theater, and the new Democratic ticket joined them for a fireworks display.

Once again, his campaign held carefully arranged events with social distancing and mask wearing, a stark contrast to Mr. Trump’s crowded rallies.

Mr. Biden was returning from a campaign trip to Minnesota when the news broke: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died. Mr. Trump and Senate Republicans moved quickly to appoint Judge Amy Coney Barrett in her place.

Mr. Biden tried to frame the court fight as a battle over the future of health care in America, warning about Mr. Trump’s desire for the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act.

The first debate was the subject of great anticipation, presenting Mr. Trump with a chance to change a race that was unfolding in Mr. Biden’s favor. It also put a spotlight on Mr. Biden after Mr. Trump had spent months portraying him as a senile old man.

The meeting, however, was remembered not for Mr. Biden’s performance but for Mr. Trump’s constant interruptions.

Later that week came another seismic development: Mr. Trump tested positive for the coronavirus. Within two weeks, he had recovered and returned to the campaign trail with large rallies that flouted public health guidance.

Mr. Biden stuck to his approach. He made more visits to battleground states but refrained from holding crowded events.

In the final weeks, Mr. Biden pioneered a pandemic-appropriate substitute for traditional events: drive-in campaign rallies.His speeches quickly took on a new soundtrack, with applause lines punctuated by the beeping of car horns.

On the last weekend before Election Day, Mr. Biden campaigned with former President Barack Obama in Michigan, a state their ticket won twice. With coronavirus cases surging in many places, they condemned Mr. Trump over his handling of the pandemic.

Mr. Biden finished the campaign much the way he had started, presenting himself as a unifying figure who would work to repair the damage inflicted by Mr. Trump’s presidency.