Yesterday afternoon, Joe Biden stood at a podium in Delaware and offered a stark contrast to Donald Trump: boring competence. Steady wonkiness. The unsexy nuts-and-bolts of being a public servant. That’s all it was. And it was so refreshing, I wanted to cry. Biden gave a speech about the coronavirus just about 16 hours after Trump’s catastrophic Oval Office speech. Trump’s speech was so bad, he caused one of the worst stock market crashes of all time. Literally, all Biden had to do was stand up there and speak in a calm and factual manner, and that’s what he did. And it also helped that he’s been doing this for decades, that he knows how to talk to people, he knows how to put anxious people at ease and console worried people too. Here’s his speech:

As the Independent pointed out, Biden offered something not seen in four years of Trumpism: empathy. Biden apparently won over Republicans too:

At the outset of his speech — the point where Trump had offered boasts and tried to assign blame — Biden offered Americans something they had not seen since January 2017: a glimpse at a consoler-in-chief.

“I know people are worried, and my thoughts are with all those who are directly fighting this virus — those infected, families that have suffered a loss, our first responders and healthcare providers who are putting themselves on the line for others. And I’d like to thank those who are already making sacrifices to protect us — whether that’s self-quarantining or cancelling events or closing campuses,” Biden said. “Because whether or not you are infected, or know someone who is infected, or have been in contact with an infected person, this will require a national response. Not just from our elected leaders or our public health officials — from all of us.”

“We all must follow the guidance of health officials and take appropriate precautions — to protect ourselves, and critically, to protect others, especially those who are most at risk from this disease,” he continued, adding later that his campaign — unlike Trump’s — would be canceling large public events until advised that it is safe for such gatherings to resume by a committee of experts his campaign has assembled. “We will be led by the science,” he declared.

…It wasn’t just Democrats who were impressed with Biden’s performance. One former Republican elected official who cut his teeth in the Tea Party movement but asked to remain anonymous for fear of harassment from his former colleagues put it succinctly: “Biden f*cking became president today.”

Another ex-Tea Party Republican wasn’t shy about speaking on the record about the events of the past 24 hours. Joe Walsh, the Illinois ex-Congressman who recently attempted to challenge Trump in the GOP primary, predicted that Trump’s disastrous speech and Biden’s response would be remembered as an inflection point which boosted the former VP’s chances of occupying the Oval Office at this time next year.

“Trump’s sh*tty response to this pandemic paved the way for a guy like Biden to stand in front of the American people today and just reassure people and calm them,” he said. “That’s something Trump is just incapable of doing. After three and a half years of this absolute a–hole in the White House, the American people just want to breathe. And I really believe that with Biden, they know him and they feel like they can just pause and do just that.”

[From The Independent]

It’s true though – I watched Biden’s speech and it was so boring and normal and HE SAID OBVIOUS THINGS which any world leader would and should say in a pandemic situation, and that’s what it made it refreshing. We’ve gone so far, as a society, to normalize Trump’s insanity and all of his petty, asinine, racist malarkey that it’s actually stunning to listen to a leader who is calm, competent and empathetic.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.