As the nation's streets teemed with thousands protesting decades of racism and the most recent horrific example, the two presidential rivals joined their 2020 battle with sharply different visions of leadership.
In so doing, President Donald Trump and Joe Biden provided voters with what will likely be the first of the many contrasts in both tone and substance that will shape their battle for the right to wield the presidency's power the next four years.
Just 15 hours after Trump displayed the empty words and symbolic gestures that have exemplified his continuing failure to cope with the country's current trifecta of problems, Biden ended weeks respecting Delaware's self-isolation guidelines with a serious, thoughtful outline of the policies and approach he would bring to the White House.
"The country is crying out for leadership," Biden said, using terms absent from the presidency the past four years. "Leadership that can unite us. Leadership that can bring us together."
He spoke the morning after Trump sought cover from his failure to provide substantive solutions for the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting recession and the latest outburst of racial divisions by echoing the "law and order" hardline appeal Richard Nixon used to win the presidency a half-century ago and staging what aides saw as a compelling demonstration of personal toughness.
First, security personnel, acting with the approval of his attorney general, used tear gas and pepper bombs to clear peaceful protestors from Lafayette Square. Then, Trump and a coterie including Attorney General Bill Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and the fatigues-clad chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff marched through ranks of law enforcement personnel to the venerable St. John's Episcopal Church, where, inexplicably, he silently held aloft a Bible.
That demonstration, Biden said, suggested the president "is more interested in power than in principle. More interested in serving the passions of his base than the needs of the people in his care." But criticism of Trump's photo op was but a small portion of his speech.
"The moment has come for our nation to deal with systemic racism," the former vice president said. "To deal with the growing economic inequality in our nation. And to deal with the denial of the promise of this nation _ to so many."
He urged Congress to act immediately on police reform measures being drafted by the Congressional Black Caucus, including legislation to bar the kinds of choke holds that caused George Floyd's death, "to stop transferring weapons of war to police forces, to improve oversight and accountability, to create a model use of force standard."
He also said Congress "should act to rectify racial inequalities in the allocation of COVID-19 recovery funds" and added he plans to outline a broader "agenda on economic justice and opportunity" in the coming weeks.
If elected, Biden said he would create a national police oversight commission. And he renewed his call to expand Obamacare, noting that Trump, "even now in the midst of a public health crisis with massive unemployment, wants to destroy it" by backing a legal challenge that would invalidate key provisions.
These are just the first items in Biden's plans to pledge an activist agenda. While a Washington Post story likening it to FDR's New Deal seemed somewhat exaggerated, the presumptive Democratic nominee's approach stands in direct contrast to Trump's repeated insistence the anticipated post-pandemic economic rebound will solve the nation's current problems.
Asked last month for his plan to put 35 million unemployed Americans back to work, Trump replied, "I think we have announced a plan. We are opening up our country...The plan is each state opening." That resembled his prior forecast that, with warmer weather, the coronavirus itself would begin to vanish.
Then, last Friday, in a rambling 40-minute speech hailing better-than-expected jobless numbers, Trump said they mitigated the need for additional action to combat the systemic racism targeted by the protests over Floyd's murder.
"What's happened to our country and what you now see, it's been happening, is the greatest thing that can happen for race relations, for the African American community, for the Asian American (community), for the Hispanic American community, for women, for everything," Trump said, when asked what his plan was to combat racism. "Because our country is so strong. And that's what my plan is."
Though Trump had reason to feel upbeat over the unanticipated drop in unemployment, his optimism failed to acknowledge that minority joblessness rose.
Besides, May's jobless figure was still the second highest in 90 years and even some Republican economists cautioned against the "rocket" recovery that Trump and the stock market are forecasting. Meanwhile, in some reopened states, new COVID-19 cases rose.
As the campaign proceeds, this week's contrast between an activist Biden and a self-satisfied Trump may well be magnified. That's because the veteran former vice president has become the candidate of change, while the 2016 revolutionary has become the status quo incumbent.
A repetition of May's unexpectedly strong job numbers may embolden Trump's reliance on more of the same. But that's a big gamble when polls show that two of three Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
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