Joe Biden Made Me a Better President: Obama Packs a Punch at DNC

On Day 3, Kamala Harris was formally nominated as Biden’s running mate.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden. 

(Photo Courtesy: AP)

Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention highlighted over and over the plight of the American democracy, as several speakers spoke about the trajectory of the Donald Trump Administration since election.

The one who stood out was, of course, former US President Barack Obama.

(Graphic: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

“I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care,” Obama said. “But he never did.”

“1,70,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”

Barack Obama, Former US President

‘American Democracy at Stake’

In an appeal to voters, particularly younger voters, Obama said, “I’m…asking you to believe in your own ability, to embrace your own responsibility as citizens,” he said, adding, “To make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure. Because that is what is at stake right now. Our democracy.”

“They know they can’t win you over with their policies so they’re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote and to convince you that your vote does not matter. That is how they win,” Obama said, referring to he steady collapse of the United States Postal Service that is critical for voters to cast their mail-in ballots amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Graphic: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

‘I Didn’t Know I’d End Up Finding a Brother’

Recounting the selection of Biden as his vice presidential candidate and running mate in 2008, Obama said:

(Graphic: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

He further said, “I didn’t know I’d end up finding a brother. Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about Joe Biden is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief. Joe is a man who learned – early on – to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity, living by the words his parents taught him: ‘No one’s better than you, Joe, but you’re better than nobody.’”

In direct direct reproach of Trump’s famous 2016 line ‘I alone can fix it’, Obama said that Biden and Harris have the ability to lead the country “out of dark times”, but that their election alone will not be enough.

“No single American can fix this country alone, not even a president,” Obama said. “Democracy was never meant to be transactional, you give me your vote, I make everything better. It requires an active an informed citizenry.”

It was also on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention that Kamala Devi Harris officially became the the first Black and South Asian woman nominated to a major party’s presidential ticket.