“Welcome back,” Joe Biden told Donald Trump, his predecessor and successor, as the pair shook hands in the Oval Office. For Biden, it was important to show the world that America can still conduct a peaceful transfer of power. “A transition that’s so smooth it’ll be as smooth as it can get,” Trump said.
It was an outward show of permanence and stability. But behind the two men a fire was burning fiercely in the grate. TV comedian Stephen Colbert observed: “I do think it was fitting that they held the meeting in front of a roaring metaphor for the future.”
