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**JANUARY 20, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

The Power of Compassion

****

Joe Biden did something at the Lincoln Memorial last night that was
remarkable partly because his predecessor was incapable of it. Biden
acknowledged and affirmed the everyday heroism and grief of so many
Americans.

But Biden has a special gift for this kind of healing. Lest we forget,
this is a man who lost his wife and daughter in a horrific car crash
when he was 30. He went on just a month later to be the second-youngest
senator ever to take office.

He later lost his cherished son Beau to cancer, and went on to be
elected president. Some people just harden their hearts to that kind of
loss. Joe Biden is not one of them.

Biden is the kind of person who combines a capacity for resilience with
a hole in his heart that he never forgets. Having had more than my own
share of loss, I can tell you that the two things are related.

For Trump, loss meant a casino deal that went sour, or having to shell
out money to pay off a hooker. Compassion for the personal losses of
others was beyond his capacity and comprehension.

Maybe it's Biden's Irish sentimentality or maybe it's just his
innate character and painful life experience. But his deep compassion
comes naturally at a moment when the nation is deeply hungry for
healing. That sort of genuine consolation cannot be fabricated by
speechwriters.

If America is ever to come together after the ravages of Trump and the
coronavirus, we must first appreciate each other's struggle and
sorrow. Biden was far from my first choice, but this just might be the
right marriage of moment and man. He is as authentic as Trump was fake.

Biden's gift for compassion goes beyond the underwhelming label that
attached to him in the campaign-a man of decency. But both traits,
combined with the nation's need for deep healing, could give pause to
Republicans inclined to cynically block everything Biden proposes.

Biden's long-standing personal relationships with many Republican
senators, which at first alarmed many progressives as too bipartisan and
centrist, are also just what the country needs.

Forgive the optimism. Maybe I'm just caught up in the wave of relief
and joy on this Inauguration Day, which very nearly didn't happen.
Just as we can all use some compassion, we can all use some hope.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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Biden's Actual Day One Agenda

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That Old-Time Southern Populism

Democratic victory in Georgia, and across the South, combined
long-term multiracial organizing and a pitch to directly improve
people's lives. BY ELI DAY

To Save America, Look at America as It Is

How modeling the electorate is critical to understanding the
challenge we face BY STANLEY B. GREENBERG

Senate Leaders Negotiate the Biden Presidency

Plus, the inauguration that could be held, I don't know, with two
people in a room. BY DAVID DAYEN

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