Elaine Byrne: Can this consummate politician somehow save America from itself?

Joe Biden is as experienced as they come, but he has his work cut out as he assumes the US presidency

US President Joe Biden and wife Jill at the US Capitol after his inauguration on Wednesday: he faces an unprecedented public health crisis, a fractured democracy and a severe economic downturn. Photo: David Tulis/Getty

Not since Franklin D Roosevelt’s election as US president during the Great Depression in 1932 has America been in such crisis. Joe Biden acknowledged as much in his inauguration speech last Wednesday.

“Few people in our nation’s history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we’re in now,” he said.

The problems are three-fold. The Biden administration has inherited a pandemic that passed a bleak milestone on ...