For the past few months, USA has been making news for all the wrong reasons. The Presidential Election was muddled in controversy with claims of voting fraud by outgoing Republican President Donald Trump which culminated in the Capitol building siege by Trump’s supporters. The country that preached and championed democracy in other countries seemed to crumble under its own feet as anarchy took over the streets and annals of power. “Will he come to terms with the loss and gracefully leave office or stay put in the White House to be impeached dishonorably?”, this was the question in the minds of people across the world who have been hoping for a smooth and peaceful transition of power.
Though not smooth and peaceful, there will be a transition. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will be initiated into their offices today at the Inauguration Ceremony to be held at Washington D.C. Both of them, with one hand raised towards the sky and the other on the Bible will be swearing-in, commencing the next Democrat administration in the White House.
This administration will see many firsts in the country’s history. To start with, for the first time, there will be a woman in position of power in the White House. Here are some of the other firsts that this administration will see:
‘Desi’fied administration
This is the first US administration to feature the maximum number of Indian Americans in command and is a welcome change from the norm of having stiff-upper-lipped, highly opinionated, entitled White men. Some of the notable ones are:
Neera Tanden: Nominated as Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Dr Vivek Murthy: Nominated as the US Surgeon General.
Vanita Gupta: Nominated as Associate Attorney General Department of Justice.
Uzra Zeya: Nominated under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.
Mala Adiga: Appointed as Policy Director to the future First Lady Dr Jill Biden.
Garima Verma: Nominated as the Digital Director of the Office of the First Lady.
Sabrina Singh: Named as the First Lady’s Deputy Press Secretary.
Aisha Shah: Named as Partnership Manager at the White House Office of Digital Strategy.
Sameera Fazili: Will occupy the key position of Deputy Director at the US National Economic Council (NEC) in the White House.
Bharat Ramamurti: Nominated as the Deputy Director of the White House National Economic Council.
Gautam Raghavan: Nominated as Deputy Director in Office of Presidential Personnel.
Vinay Reddy: Named as Director of Speechwriting.
Vedant Patel: Nominated as Assistant Press Secretary to the President.
Sonia Aggarwal: Named Senior Advisor for Climate Policy and Innovation in the Office of the Domestic Climate Policy at the White House.
Vidur Sharma: Appointed as Policy Advisor for Testing for the White House Covid-19 Response Team.
Apart from them, three Indian-Americans have made their way to the crucial National Security Council of the White House, steering the country’s foreign policy and national security.
Source: Livemint
A Working FLOTUS
In addition to this, this is the first time that the country will have a First Lady who will be working. That’s right, FLOTUS Jill Biden is all set to keep her job, stepping away from the generally followed practice set forth by her predecessor, including the most recent Melania Trump, who had quit their jobs to support their partners.
But, this is no surprise. Jill had continued her teaching job, even whilst serving as the Second Lady of the United States for 8 years during the Obama administration. She unapologetically proclaimed in an interview about the need for the country to respect teachers, and how she will continue working and not be on call at all points of the day in the White House. This seems like a refreshing break from the mere cheerleading that the wives of the POTUS have been traditionally doing, and will serve as an inspiration to millions of women whose husbands are in public life.
This is also an important reminder of how, time and again. wives of Presidents, no matter how accomplished, have been expected to give up their careers, even highly lauded FLOTUSES like Michelle Obama to stand testament. Despite being an advocate of causes, the fact that their lives outside of the White House being nothing but that of a dutiful wife is something that is worth pondering about.
Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff
With Kamala Harris’ Vice Presidency, the United States for the first time will have a ‘Second Gentleman’ Douglas Emhoff. Douglas has resigned his job at Deloitte to support his wife in her new role.
What is surprising, and borderline sad about this is the fact that there are no provisions in the US Constitution that actually define a position called the Second Gentleman. Every lawmaker in the United States is breaking their heads as they try to figure out a job description that describes the duties of a Second Gentleman. It almost feels as though the founding fathers of the US Constitution conveniently assumed or rather omitted the possibility of a woman even contesting and winning an election that could make her the office bearer of the second most important position of the country. Who’s to say, they probably even assumed that in the event of that ever occurring, she would not be married for having been a woman in public life.
If the fact that the Vice President of this cabinet was female was not enough, what causes the eyebrows to raise even more is the fact that she is a woman of colour, born as the daughter of two immigrants, and is married to a Jewish white man. This makes Emhoff the first spouse of an American Vice President who is Jewish. Not to say that this has opened up an uncomfortable conversation for the citizens of a country that is mostly Christian and extremely prone to racial disparities and religion-based stigmatization.
The oldest POTUS
At 78, Joe Biden will become the 46th President Of The United States, the oldest person to have his hands over the nuke button. Joe Biden served as the Vice President during Barack Obama’s Presidency. He is the second Roman Catholic to hold the highest office after John. F. Kennedy.
With Americans remaining divided like never before, President Biden and Vice President Harris has a humongous task of building confidence among their non-supporters and taking everyone along with them in these challenging times. Will the ‘many firsts’ administration go beyond the optics? Only time will tell.