Finally able
to give their election victory speeches last night, President-elect Joe Biden
and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris made sure to note how historic, diverse,
and groundbreaking their campaign for the White House has been.
“And to all
those who supported us,” Biden said during
his 15 minutes of remarks, “I am proud of the campaign we built and ran I
am proud of the coalition we put together, the broadest and most diverse in
history. Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Progressives, moderates and
conservatives….Gay, straight, transgender.”
Biden’s speech
is another precedent-setting first: he is the first President or
President-elect to mention trans people in official remarks. It seems that the
eventual 46th President is beginning to follow through with his campaign
promise to trans people that he believes “that
Trans Lives Matter,” as he wrote in an article for LGBTQ Nation last
month.
The moment
follows in the footsteps of Biden’s former partner, President Barack Obama, who
was the first to mention
gay people in a victory speech when he was elected to commander-in-chief
in 2008.
Then, Obama
explained that “questions [on] the power of our democracy” were answered with
his victory, citing that change comes through people both “gay, [and]
straight.”
In his speech,
Biden continued on to thank his racially diverse supporters – “White. Latino.
Asian. Native American. And especially for those moments when this campaign was
at its lowest — the African American community stood up again for me. They
always have my back, and I’ll have yours.”
“I said from
the outset I wanted a campaign that represented America, and I think we did
that,” the President-elect said. “Now that’s what I want the administration to
look like.”
Biden once
again renewed his request to Trump supporters and conservatives to give him a
chance and allow him to lead the United States to “lower the temperature” so
the people can “see each other again” and “listen to each other again.”
“To make
progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies.
We are Americans,” he reasoned. He also cited the Bible which declares that
there is “a time to heal.”
Now, “this is
the time to heal in America,” the President-elect declared.
Before Biden
spoke, Harris also gave remarks on her momentous victory as the first
Vice President-elect in United States history.
She opened
with mention of the late Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights activist and
longtime Congressman of the state of Georgia — where Biden and Harris unexpectedly
won the vote for the state, the first time for a Democratic
Presidential ticket in nearly three decades. She also name-checked
her late mother, Shyamala Gopolan Harris, who emigrated to the United
States at 19 from India.
“While I may
be the first woman in this office, I
will not be the last,” Harris declared, “because every little girl watching
tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities, and to the children of
our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear
message — dream with ambition.”
The two
spoke from Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden has resided for over 40 years,
as the campaign awaited the election results to become clear for five days
before declaring victory.
See Biden’s
remarks below. His mention of gay and trans people is at approximately 5:25.
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