Trump v Biden: Two Speeches Reveal Very Different Candidates

Everyone knew it would end up this way, but now it’s official. Donald Trump is the Republican candidate for president and Joe Biden is the Democrat candidate. As each candidate gave his acceptance speech, we heard two very different visions for America’s future.

Early in his speech, Joe Biden described the United States as being in a very dark place right now. He portrayed President Donald Trump as the cause, and he argued that America needed someone who could unite the people and bring the nation out of this despair. Only in the second half of his speech did Biden actually talk about his own plans and policies. Joe Biden’s strategy in his speech seemed to be pointing out the tragedies and problems that the president has been unable to solve completely.

President Trump, on the other hand, presented himself as a strong president with a record of success. The president spent the first half of his speech talking about the story of America, accusing Joe Biden and the Democratic Party of being ashamed of our shared American history. Trump then went in-depth about his accomplishments since becoming president.

While some people might have expected Trump to defend himself against the accusations that he did a bad job handling the COVID-19 pandemic, the president took a different approach. He pointed out various statistics about America’s testing capabilities, the much lower fatality rate compared to the European Union, and the innovation of America’s vaccine trials. This part of the speech was very effective since most of Joe Biden’s election campaign focuses on Trump messing up America’s response to the pandemic.

Trump’s speech consisted of his achievements, trying to broaden his appeal to Republican voters. Biden’s speech seemed intended to draw an emotional response from viewers. Biden will likely continue to promote himself as a uniting figure. In contrast, Trump will continue to portray himself as an accomplished president. Only time will tell us which narrative will resonate with Americans at the voting booth.