In 10 letters to President Joe Biden, prominent public figures in business, academia, and public life weigh in on what he should do to bring the country together at a fraught time for American democracy.

Build a working coalition 

By Leon E. Panetta
Mr. Panetta is a former director of the CIA and secretary of defense under President Barack Obama.

Dear Joe:

My deepest congratulations on your inauguration as the 46th president of the United States. Having known and worked with you for more than 40 years, I believe you are one of the most experienced and qualified individuals to serve as the nation’s commander in chief.

No one better understands the whirlwind of critical problems at home and abroad that you will be inheriting. And no one knows better how quickly you can fail if you are unable to build a bipartisan working majority in the House and Senate that will work with you to govern.

The nation cannot withstand four more years of partisan gridlock and dysfunction. In our democracy, we govern either by leadership or by crisis. If leadership is willing to take the risks necessary to build consensus, we can avoid or certainly contain crisis. But if leadership is not there, we will inevitably govern by crisis. But there is a price to be paid for relying on crisis – the loss of trust of the American people in our system of governing.

You know what it takes to work together to get things done. It is about building relationships, and the best time to build that working coalition is in the first 100 days of the new administration. The nucleus for that coalition can begin with the bipartisan members of the House and Senate who successfully worked on the last COVID-19 aid package.

Your first legislative efforts should focus on delivering opportunity for all. Some critical elements of that agenda could be an additional recovery bill that provides businesses, workers, states, and communities the federal assistance needed to get them back on their feet; a rebuild America bill that funds new infrastructure jobs in both rural and urban America; a national service bill that gives every young person the funds to pay for a college education or skill training in exchange for two years of public service; and a bill to renew the promise of America that enacts comprehensive immigration reform that provides for border security, a legal workforce, and a path to citizenship. 

Of course, your administration will have to deal with a number of priorities at home and abroad, but the first job is to show that you can successfully govern.

By passing a strong bipartisan agenda, you will not only restore the American dream of equal opportunity for all, but you will also help restore faith in our democracy. 

God bless you.

Job one: Restore public trust in government

By Christine Todd Whitman
Ms. Whitman is a former governor of New Jersey and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George W. Bush.

As you enter office, our nation is facing threats to the very foundation of our democracy. Beyond the legislation and policy decisions you’ll make in office, the greatest challenge you will face is to restore America’s trust in government, which has been most recently undermined by the willingness of a substantial number of congressional Republicans to continue to challenge what was a safe and accurate election and to fail to decry the storming of the Capitol by a Trump-incited mob.

Our institutions were established for our “general welfare,” as it says in the Constitution’s preamble. And yet, not surprisingly, many Americans no longer trust that our government is working for their good. On all sides of the political spectrum, belief in the integrity of public leaders, the competence of public institutions, and the value of the rule of law has eroded.

Trust in government includes respect for our country’s founding documents and the rule of law. The absence of this respect paves the way to abuse of power and disregard for liberties. If you can reestablish this common foundation of trust, it will allow you to move forward on other important initiatives.

The shared acceptance of science and fact is also part of this general respect for institutions. Until we restore public trust in science, people will be skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine, hampering our ability to get the virus under control.

That trust will also impact our nation’s health in the long run, as we restore the regulations designed to protect us. Our country must reach a consensus on the value of science in order to avoid intensifying health disasters in the short and long term.

You are a patriot who has respected our country, our Constitution, and the rule of law throughout your career. While restoring our nation’s trust is a tall order, too large for any one president, you are aware of the problem and are well suited to the task. Our country needs a leader of integrity and decency to start healing, and I believe you are that leader that will help bring our country together again.

Focus on solutions, not party labels

By Francis Suarez
Mr. Suarez is the mayor of Miami.

Dear Mr. President:

You’ve been entrusted to serve as president in a period best described as “no ordinary time.” Some are hoping that you fail. Some are praying that you succeed. But all of us need you to re-instill decency in our politics, fairness in our discourse, and respect for all of our liberties and all of our citizens. While I’m fairly new to politics, I’ve learned a few things. 

1. See Americans, not parties. While I don’t claim to be an expert, I know this: Americans want a government that serves them, not any elite or clique. As a mayor, I’ve learned that people look to their elected leaders for practical solutions, not partisan ones. They expect results, not political treatises. Please focus on getting things done, not getting things “right.” Look beyond labels and look at character.

Republican senators such as Ben Sasse have championed smart, practical policies for working people that actually work. Some Democratic senators have joined them, and so can you. We can defend our principles while also creating practical solutions that deliver for working people. And as many mayors know, “getting things done” is always good politics. 

2. Invest in Americans, not in ideologies. Americans are our greatest national resource and we need to invest in them through infrastructure, education, and a competitive tax system that rewards initiative and innovation while punishing irresponsible and destructive behavior. All new infrastructure needs to be climate adaptive. Both parties recognize that bridges, roads, and other new projects need to be built to endure increased storms, flooding, tornadoes, wildfires, and other natural disasters. And climate-adaptive infrastructure will drive down our insurance premiums, serving effectively as a broad-based tax cut for those who need it most.

Our educational system now needs to be based on lifelong learning and continuous training. We need to see education not simply as a way to get a degree but as part of a continuous journey, where everyone can learn, grow, find employment, and stay employed in a fast-changing job market. 

3. Look to the future, not to the past. A new generation of elected officials are emerging who can transcend past divisions and personal invective, while delivering principled and smart solutions. The nature of our national challenges quite simply exceeds the solutions of one single person or of one single party. We literally need each other to survive and to succeed. And we also need to include our state and local leaders just as we have in the past. Public health, climate adaptation, workforce education, and economic development are now national security issues. And they will continue to be.

We also need to invest in our police and their training, not defund them or defund our criminal justice system. And just as we must remove the social poison of entrenched racism from our nation, we must remove the political poison of militant socialism from our politics.

You have great personal relationships with members of Congress, national figures, and world leaders. Listen to them, learn from them, and look for solutions that are not simply bipartisan but nonpartisan. The buck stops with you. You’ve got the ball now; go for it!

Why the world needs American leadership

By Mary Robinson
Ms. Robinson is a former president of Ireland and former United Nations high commissioner for human rights who chairs The Elders, an international human rights organization. 

Dear Mr. President: 

You assume office at a critical moment for your country and the whole world. The impact of COVID-19 has been devastating for global health, trade, economic performance, and social cohesion. It has underscored the interconnectedness and fragility of human societies, and starkly exposed the hollow boasts of populist and nationalist rhetoric.

No one country, not even one as large and powerful as the United States, can tackle the pandemic alone. But American leadership is critical in galvanizing a coordinated global response, and your presidency can make a crucial difference by restoring the principles of multilateral cooperation, trust, and integrity to decision-making.

One crucial step will be to rejoin the World Health Organization, which remains the indispensable global body to lead the response to COVID-19 and future pandemics. The outgoing administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO was myopic and deeply damaging, and I hope it will be quickly reversed. I am already heartened by your pledge to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change and reassert American leadership in the face of this existential challenge. 

This will be an urgent year for climate action, culminating in the COP26 U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November. There is now not a moment to lose to reengage in international climate diplomacy, meet commitments on climate finance to help developing nations, and cut national emissions. 

Across the board, we need to restore cooperation and compassion as the necessary guides of world affairs, from climate action and nuclear nonproliferation to racial justice, gender equality, and respecting the rights of migrants and refugees. 

Mr. President, I know how proud you are of your Irish heritage, which includes links to my own hometown of Ballina in County Mayo. This year, people all across Ireland will celebrate the visit to my country in the 1840s of the great African American abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, whose struggle for freedom continues to inspire people today. 

Douglass once said that “the life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.” After the past tumultuous 12 months, we need honesty, truth, and virtue more than ever at the heart of public life. I have every hope and confidence that you will be guided by these values as you undertake your most important task ahead.

In global affairs, no more US preeminence 

By Andrew Bacevich
Dr. Bacevich is a professor emeritus at Boston University and president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Dear President Biden:

Soon after winning election to the presidency, you announced that “America is back, ready to lead the world” and to resume its accustomed place “at the head of the table.” Among those distressed that your predecessor showed so little interest in leading anything anywhere, such sentiments resonate.

In the political circles where you have spent virtually your entire adult life, belief that history summons the United States to lead the world is an article of faith. So too is the conviction that the world itself yearns for American leadership, with other nations eager for Washington to occupy a position of privilege. A return to pre-Trump normalcy implies a restoration of U.S. global preeminence.  

I urge you to reconsider any such expectation. In the aftermath of World War II, with international politics centered on a bipolar competition between East and West, such a formulation possessed a certain utility. The euphoria unleashed by the end of the Cold War made the temptation to double down on such claims all but irresistible.

But the era of American primacy has ended. We may date its demise from the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which as a U.S. senator you supported. In the roughly two decades since, as the U.S. was squandering trillions of dollars in failed military campaigns, the global order has undergone a transformation. The emergence of new threats in the form of climate change and pandemics offers one example. The shifting distribution of power in East Asia offers a second, with nuclear proliferation and our nation’s emergence as the world’s leading debtor others. 

So the global table at which your administration will take a seat is not rectangular. It is round. No nation or body of nations will sit at its head. No doubt the clout wielded by individual countries gathered around that table varies – not all are equal. But none will dominate – not China, not Russia, not us, not anyone. Acknowledging this reality implies a radically different approach to statecraft, one that should emphasize collaboration rather than coercion, setting an example rather than issuing threats and inflicting punishment.  

Yes, the U.S. must always stand ready to defend its vital interests from attack. But much as those interests are changing, so too should the means employed to protect them.

Listen to a diversity of voices and views

By Ruth J. Simmons 
Dr. Simmons is president of Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black university in Texas.  

As educational leaders, we are accustomed to giving advice to students as they enter our institutions and, again, as they leave to face the future. The advice we impart as they begin their journey is simple: work hard, embrace difference, acknowledge the importance of criticism, and remain open to the prospect of learning from individuals from every stratum of society. While the theater of opportunity and action is far more vast and complex for the president of the United States, there may be surprising similarities in the opportunities for a president to show needed leadership at a particularly challenging moment of history.

It would normally be superfluous if not ridiculous to urge the president to work hard, but recent history informs us how important such an exhortation may be. We not only expect our leaders to engage deeply with the issues of importance to the American people, but we also want to see an intense level of engagement manifested daily. Nothing matters more to us when we are experiencing serious problems than to see our leaders furrow their brow, dig in, demonstrate concern, and take action that is in line with the magnitude of the problems we face. So, let us see how hard you’re trying, Mr. President. You won’t always get it right when it comes to your decision-making and actions, but your sincere and selfless engagement with the issues will help to soothe our concerns.

Embracing difference is a central tenet of self-improvement. Accepting that others may hold valid perspectives that can provide greater clarity and helpfully improve outcomes is an essential aspect of wise, inclusive leadership. Many surround themselves with longtime supporters eager to form a chorus of approval for leaders often beleaguered by criticism. I ask that you fight the impulse to surround yourself with those who are comfortable interlocutors, telling you what you most desire to hear. The danger of such a path is manifest in the problems we face today as a nation: massive unemployment and economic disarray, a disintegrating social fabric, a Constitution in peril. Robust inclusion of a range of perspectives will instill greater confidence in the public that we are on a better path to resolve the issues that most concern us.

We have recently been stung by a harrowing set of events that point to significant disparities in the way different groups are treated, leading to long-lived issues that contribute to social fracture and political upheaval. It is possible to be aware of these kinds of gaps in equality if one pays close attention and listens to those outside the policy bubbles. I ask that your visitors to the White House be not just the wealthy, famous, and politically connected, but also the average citizens who can give you a sense of where we are headed as a nation. The country belongs to all of us and, while I know that it is your inclination to be inclusive, I ask that this be made clear to those across the country in the actions you take, in the directions you give to Cabinet members, and in the way your schedule is designed.

Mr. President, like our students setting out on their academic journey, you will not want for advice and direction. Remember that the people elected you because of your character and your commitment to them and the country. In the final analysis, I hope you will rely mostly on your experience and knowledge, along with the empathy you have for those suffering and cast aside, to lift the hopes of our youth. The young people we welcome every year to our schools and universities are all-
important to the future of the country. Embrace them. Inspire them. Show them the importance of including, caring for, and serving others. In short, show them how to lead.

Take steps to curb corrosive populism

By William G. Howell and Terry M. Moe 
Dr. Howell, a professor at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Moe, a professor at Stanford University, are the authors of “Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy.” 

With Joe Biden’s election, our nation averted catastrophe. Four more years of Donald Trump’s populist-

authoritarian rule could have destroyed American democracy. What we’ve won, however, is merely a reprieve. The nation’s crisis of democracy continues, as the recent mob attack on Congress makes clear. The Biden administration must recognize this crisis for what it is and take calculated actions to mitigate it.  

Mr. Trump’s rise to power was partly predicated on white backlash to growing diversity, but also on the very real economic harms and cultural anxieties born of rising globalization, automation, immigration, and urbanization. These are serious problems that our government has been entirely ineffective at dealing with, resulting in a surge of populist anger against a system that doesn’t work, and support for a strongman like Mr. Trump who can attack that system and get things done on his own. 

Mr. Trump has lost the presidency. But his populist base and its anti-system anger are not going away, and they remain a mortal threat to democracy. Mr. Biden’s challenge is to address the sources of this threat by making government work for these people – and for everybody.

Mr. Biden can defuse populism in two ways. First, he can pursue policies – on immigration, job training, trade, health care, infrastructure, rural community investment, and more – that alleviate the substantive causes of populist anger. Second, and more fundamentally, he can push for institutional reforms – designed, for example, to streamline the legislative process through fast-track decision-making and to depoliticize the federal bureaucracy – that enhance the government’s overall capacity for effective performance.

With Congress evenly split and Republicans intent on blocking, progress will be difficult. The current need for policy action and institutional reform vastly outstrips what the present political moment allows. Still, these aspirations must be front and center. Mr. Biden should speak emphatically about the long-standing failures of government – Democratic as well as Republican – and his intention to dramatically improve how government works, especially for society’s most alienated. Some legislation may succeed, but Mr. Biden also can use his unilateral powers to improve the lives of vulnerable Americans. Done right, early achievements can pave the way for bigger electoral victories – and more consequential policies and reforms that permanently end the populist threat. 

Mr. Biden’s first year in office must be more than a restoration of civility and normalcy. America remains in crisis. He needs to see himself as playing a pivotal role in American history: the savior of our democracy.

For students, debt relief, not blanket cancellation

By Heidi Heitkamp 
Ms. Heitkamp served as the first female senator elected from North Dakota from 2013 to 2019. She is co-founder of the One Country Project, which aims to reconnect Democrats with rural America.

For the good of the economic future of our country, the Biden administration must address crushing student loan debt. However, it would be politically wise to proceed with caution. Blanket debt forgiveness is seen by many Americans as grossly unfair. This is particularly true for Americans who worked their way through college, served in our military to qualify for GI student benefits, sacrificed to save to pay for their children’s education, and already paid back their student loans. It’s also true for Americans who never attended college because of the high cost.  

Yet there are alternatives that could successfully navigate the realities of a failed and onerous student loan system and the concerns that total loan forgiveness is an unfair bailout. America could unite behind an alternative plan that centers on the following principles:

• Interest rate reform. Adjust student loan interest rates to a variable rate equal to today’s 10-year Treasury note rate. Further, the U.S. Department of Education should apply the rate retroactively over the period of the past 10 years of loan repayment. Current federal direct loan rates range from 2.75% for undergraduates to 5.3% for graduate students. The current 10-year Treasury note is less than 1%. Once interest rates are adjusted, any overpayment from interest in the past will be applied to the loan principal and in many cases will wipe out the debt. If a person has overpaid principal, the department will reimburse that student the excess amount. 

• First-generation students. Give special consideration to first-generation college students by applying retroactively a 0% interest rate to their student loans. 

• Public service. Implement and broaden loan forgiveness programs for those who go into public service. People, for instance, who become police officers, teachers, firefighters, doctors, and nurses – and who meet the time requirements – must be given total debt forgiveness as promised.  

• Business incentives. Permanently increase to $20,000 the amount an employer can contribute, tax free, to an employee to repay student loans. Create a student debt forgiveness program within the Small Business Administration to help Americans who want to start a business get student loan relief. 

Student debt reform done strategically, as opposed to offering across-the-board debt forgiveness, will be more broadly accepted and would not add fuel to the fires of political division. There are numerous examples of the government giving no- or low-interest loans to business recipients to further America’s economic goals. Nothing can be more important than investing in Americans and the American dream of economic opportunity. Pursuing that dream should not come with overwhelming debt and the inability to get ahead.

Work across the aisle on climate

By Carlos Curbelo
Mr. Curbelo is a former U.S. representative from Florida.

Dear Mr. President: 

Congratulations on your electoral victory. You have promised to heal and unite our country. I wish you success – for your sake and for the sake of every American.

I had the privilege of serving in Congress for four years and dedicated a plurality of my time to establishing a dialogue and building bipartisan consensus in favor of sensible and necessary climate policy solutions. With my fellow Floridian Ted Deutch, we chartered the Climate Solutions Caucus in the House – the first-ever organization inside Congress dedicated to addressing climate change and its consequences. 

For Republicans, engaging on this issue can be complicated. Attacks come from both the far-right and the far-left, and many environmental organizations are hesitant to work with Republicans or recognize their efforts. 

The world urgently needs meaningful action on climate policy. This cannot happen without our country’s leadership, and our country cannot effectively lead until we achieve a minimum degree of bipartisan consensus. In other words, climate change requires durable, consequential policy solutions that can clear both chambers. 

I assure you there are Republicans in Congress who will listen and who understand the significance and seriousness of this matter. I know them, and I have worked with them. In fact, in the shadow of the outgoing administration, Republicans worked with Democrats to pass modest but significant legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

While it might be tempting for some to continue weaponizing this issue for political gain, regrettably there is no time for such games. I strongly urge you to meet early and often with willing Republicans in order to continue building momentum for the climate solutions that will secure a healthy and prosperous future for rising generations.

Focus on stemming both racial and wealth inequality 

By James Pierce 
Mr. Pierce, an executive with the global food corporation Cargill, is a newly elected member of the Edina City Council in Edina, Minnesota.

The year 2020 was challenging, yet I have never been more encouraged by the human spirit. In the face of so many challenges – exacerbated by the events over the past few weeks – our country continues to find ways to endure. To maintain momentum, we need to resolve issues of racial equity, socioeconomic equality, and climate change.

The fabric of our nation is knitted together in a belief that the Declaration of Independence got it right with the words “all men are created equal.” As aspirational as these words were, many argue that Thomas Jefferson was not really referring to humanity. Regardless, this great nation has yet to live up to the promise of this seminal statement. 

As our demographics continue to shift, I ask you to intensify your focus on racial equity. To continue to grow this nation, all Americans must believe that our success is inextricably tied together. We must eliminate systems, practices, and policies that create an environment of institutional unfairness. Its effects are present throughout our justice, education, and health care systems. It is this unfairness that continues to hold back people of color. If left unchecked, it will inevitably undermine our future. For America to fulfill its promise, we need every American to thrive, not just survive.  

The pandemic is the most recent event highlighting the socioeconomic inequalities in our nation. Those with professional jobs were able to continue making a living, with minimal risk. Many with nonprofessional jobs were no longer able to earn an income. Those who could did so at reduced pay and in greater danger.

We must find a way to share these burdens more equally. When everyone shares in the success, more are able to develop wealth and build equity. Staying on our current path will continue to increase the wealth divide and ultimately threaten the socioeconomic fabric of the nation.

Finally, Mr. President, I implore you to refocus on the issue of climate change. My favorite quote is from Nelson Henderson. “The true meaning of life is planting trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” For the good of future generations, I ask you to solidify our approach toward green energy, setting us on a path to reverse climate change.  

Legacies are created during a lifetime, but often not fully recognized until well after. I hope that your presidency will be remembered for setting us on a path to truly fulfill the promises of this great nation for all Americans.

The historic nature of the Rev. Raphael Warnock’s election victory this month, the first time that Georgia had elected a Black senator, made headlines across the nation.

It also got the attention of the children living in Kayton Homes, a weathered two-story brick housing project in Savannah, where Mr. Warnock, a Democrat, grew up, one of 12 children. Terriyonna Blige, an energetic Black tween, points to the balcony of an apartment where she says Mr. Warnock lived as a child. “He won, right?” says Terriyonna. “Over 50%.”    

Mr. Warnock’s win “shows that it doesn’t matter where you come from, it only depends on where you’re going,” says teenager Sharefe Morgan.

As the children understood, the elections of Mr. Warnock, a Baptist preacher, and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-something Jewish filmmaker, thrust Georgia into the limelight. Their come-from-behind runoff victories on Jan. 5 brought the Senate to a 50-50 split, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes and giving control to the Democrats. The next day, a mob of right-wing extremists incited by former President Donald Trump sought to subvert the voters’ will at the U.S. Capitol. The two new senators from Georgia were sworn in by Vice President Harris Wednesday, along with her replacement Sen. Alex Padilla of California. 

Usually clad in a light-colored button-down shirt and fashionable rimless glasses, Mr. Warnock comes off as a thoroughly urbane Georgian. During the campaign, he ran lighthearted ads preemptively debunking opposition attacks by insisting he doesn’t hate puppies. He ran as an unabashed liberal in a conservative state, embracing a social justice gospel that has anchored the Black church for over 200 years.

As demographic shifts, a pandemic, and a divisive presidency coalesced, the election victories in Georgia have revealed an American South where Black and Jewish politicians can win on their own unabashedly liberal terms, complicating the path forward for Republicans in a region once known as the Solid South. Those demographics bode ill for Republicans in this and other Southern states that are attracting hundreds of thousands of Black and white transplants who bring more progressive mindsets.  

“It is a multiracial and progressive coalition that seems to be bolstered by African American voters and white liberals in and around Atlanta,” says Jason Sokol, author of “The Heavens Might Crack: The death and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.”

That means Mr. Warnock “is free to embrace his work on social justice and can actually win votes because of it rather than worrying about whether he’s going to lose white moderates because of it,” he says.  

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

Sharefe Morgan stands outside the Kayton Homes housing project in Savannah, Ga., on Jan. 6, 2021. Senator Raphael Warnock, a Black preacher and one of 12 kids, grew up in the same building.

A rebuke by Black voters

It’s been only 50-some years since passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1964, and Jim Crow is well within living memory. In his victory speech, Mr. Warnock thanked his mom, whose “82-year-old hands picked somebody else’s cotton” and has now cast a vote for her son to be elected as U.S. senator.

While the overt terror tactics and legal framework of white supremacy has ended, last year’s murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, was likened by many here to a modern-day lynching. Three white men chased the young Black jogger down and killed him after presuming, falsely, that he had committed a crime in the neighborhood. The three men have been charged with murder and other felony charges. And on the day after the runoff votes, as Mr. Warnock’s supporters celebrated his triumph, a man carried a Confederate battle flag through the U.S. Capitol as part of the pro-Trump invasion.  

Those memories and recent events inform Mr. Warnock’s victory, effectively a rebuke by Black voters to white nationalism.

Until now, the legacy of Georgia’s county-unit voting system, which overweighted rural votes before it was declared illegal, has kept the rolls of statewide constitutional offices populated by white Georgians. In the meantime, Black politicians have built power bases in Atlanta and other cities.  

“A lot of folks are still around that remember a time when it wasn’t even taken seriously that a Black candidate could win statewide,” says Charles Bullock III, an expert on Georgia politics at the University of Georgia, in Athens. “There was this notion that Blacks can be competitive, but still pay a racial tax that gets assessed by the electorate. That’s no longer the situation here in Georgia.”

The Trump factor

Before this month’s victories, Democrats had a 0-8 record in Georgia runoffs. Moreover, they had not won a statewide race since 2002 and hadn’t won a Senate seat since 1992, when Bill Clinton won the state’s electoral-college votes.

Together, all four candidates raised nearly half a billion dollars to fuel their campaigns, highlighting the national stakes to control the Senate.  

One factor in these runoffs, that may not be repeated in future elections, is President Trump’s smearing of Georgia’s Republican election officials as “enemies of the state” for their refusal to overturn Mr. Biden’s legitimate win. That controversy emboldened Democrats – especially Black ones who voted in record numbers – and depressed the vote among white conservatives.

Take northwest Georgia’s 14^th Congressional District. In November, it elected Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon conspiracist and fervent Trump supporter, as its House representative. Trump appeared in the district the night before the election. But 50,000 fewer voters turned out there on Jan. 5, even as Mr. Warnock and Mr. Ossoff ran up larger margins in urban counties compared with the general election.

The election results suggest that “the Republican Party has hit its peak and is now seeing a very rapid decline in Georgia,” says Mr. Bullock, author of “The Rise and Fall of the Voting Rights Act.” “They’ve run out of white voters.”

The Republican incumbent senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, two of the richest lawmakers in Congress, largely gave up any appeals to Georgia’s diverse suburbs and tethered themselves fully to Mr. Trump and his rural base. They depicted Georgia as a firewall against socialism to “save America.” Senator Loeffler’s campaign called Mr. Warnock a Marxist who had impugned America from the pulpit.

Her campaign showcased the Republican Party’s brand of racial insensitivity, says Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie. “Attacking Warnock’s faith in highly racialized terms only reinforced the idea that the Republican Party has a serious problem with race, which means it has a serious problem in the African American community,” she says.

Faith as a shield 

While Republican candidates tried to make Mr. Warnock’s preaching a lightning rod, his faith may have proven a shield.

Mr. Warnock, the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, is part of a Black church tradition that finds meaning in bearing witness to a social gospel of light and righteousness. That tradition has given joy and hope to oppressed Americans, even while engaging in uncomfortable truth-telling about institutional inequalities.

Jesus, Mr. Warnock said in an interview nearly 20 years ago, “was an extremist for love, truth, and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” 

Born to two Pentecostal pastors, Mr. Warnock spent his formative years in Savannah. After graduating high school, he followed King’s example, earning a theology degree at Morehouse College, and then, taking over as senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in 2005. One of his parishioners was John Lewis, the late Democratic representative and civil rights icon.

Mr. Warnock was arrested during a protest in 2014 in support of expanding Medicaid in Georgia. Until last year he was the chair of the New Georgia Project, the voter registration organization founded by Stacey Abrams that many credit for boosting Black turnout at Georgia’s elections.  

In winning the seat, he becomes the first popularly elected Black Democrat from a former Confederate state to hold a U.S. Senate seat. He is also the first African American politician to win election to the U.S. Senate on the strength of a majority-Black coalition.

Mr. Warnock took that unapologetic message to the voters this fall – and polled so strongly that he triggered a runoff. It resonated as winter came, says the Rev. Dwight Andrews of Atlanta.

“The social gospel movement of the late 19th century was about workers, giving workers a way to safety and education,” says Mr. Andrews, senior minister at First Congregational Church in Atlanta. “It’s not about Black and white. It’s about uplifting the least of these in the world. That means these messages go well beyond race ... but it has unfortunately been racialized.”

His election, however, marked a breakthrough, Mr. Warnock argued in his acceptance speech.

“This is the reversal of the old Southern strategy that sought to divide people,” he said. “In this moment, we’ve got to bring people together in order to do the hard work. And I look forward to doing that work.” 

EyeUbiquitous/Newscom/File

Women who belong to a stokvel, or saving and lending club, count money in Alexandra Township, South Africa. Around the world, savings clubs like these have long bridged gaps in formal financial services.

From the moment she arrived in South Africa in January 2017, Charity Chuma’s paychecks seemed to slip through her fingers like water.

Each month, nearly as soon as she had the money in her hands, there was a hand outstretched to take it. Her uncle back home in Zimbabwe needed help with rent. Her grandma needed money for medicine. Her mother was struggling to buy groceries.

“When people ask,” she says, “it is hard not to give.”

So when a colleague at the college dorm where she worked as a housekeeper in Johannesburg suggested Ms. Chuma join a saving and lending club – known locally as a stokvel – she jumped at the chance.

The premise was simple. Each month, one of the six women received 1,000 rand (about $70) from each of the other five, so that each member got a payout of 5,000 rand (about $330) twice a year. For Ms. Chuma, it was the first time in her life she’d been able to save a sum anywhere near that large. Within three years, she’d built a new house her family in Zimbabwe.

Around the world, savings clubs like these – known to economists as “rotating savings and credit associations” – have long bridged gaps between the world’s poor and formal banks. There are Mexico’s cundinas and Somalia’s ayuuto, China’s hui and Ethiopia’s ekub. In South Africa, stokvels were an innovation of Black South Africans – most often Black women – whom banks refused as clients in the apartheid era and beyond.

And in the past year, as the coronavirus pandemic has ripped through South Africa’s economy, stokvels have played a particularly important role, acting as a kind of informal social welfare system for many of the country’s poorest people.

“People were determined to keep saving so that they would have something if things got even worse,” says Busi Skenjana, a marketing strategist and founder of the Stokvel Academy, a nonprofit that trains stokvel members in financial literacy. “They were trying to look past this pandemic to the future that came after it.”

Indeed, an analysis by First National Bank, one of South Africa’s major financial institutions, found stokvel savings actually grew during the first few months of the pandemic.

There are many reasons for that, Ms. Skenjana says, but one is the social element of savings clubs. In a traditional stokvel, members know each other personally and hold regular, in-person meetings.

“That makes saving a social pact that’s hard to break,” she says. 

Banking for themselves

Modern stokvels first became popular in the mid-20th century, when groups of migrant laborers in the country’s gold and diamond mines began pooling money to help with funeral expenses when a mine worker died on the job.

Those “burial societies” were soon copied in the towns and villages those same laborers had left behind. Groups of women would pool their money to save for their children’s school fees, household purchases like furniture, or bulk orders of grocery staples like maize meal and rice.

“Historically, as Blacks in South Africa we did not really have access into the formal banking system, and credit was a predatory system even if you could access it,” Ms. Skenjana says. “Stokvels were a way to avoid that.”

In 2004, just 46% of South Africans had a bank account. Today, it’s up to 80%. But for many Black South Africans, the effects of “credit apartheid” have persisted in the form of bank charges, high-interest loans, and other barriers to access, says Palesa Lengolo, author of “Stokvels: How They Can Make Your Money Work For You.”

Like many South African millennials, Ms. Lengolo grew up watching the women in her life use stokvels to insulate themselves and their families against poverty. Her mother, a teacher and single mother of five, was part of a stokvel whose funds community members could borrow and repay at 30% interest. The money she earned sent her children to school, Ms. Lengolo says.

Women like her “found a way around a system that excluded them,” she says. 

Christmas to Le Creuset

About 1 in 5 South Africans are members of a stokvel, across a wide range of social classes.

And these clubs serve a wide range of purposes. Many, like the one joined by Ms. Chuma, the housekeeper in Johannesburg, give rotating cash payouts. Others are used to save money for particular events like funerals or Christmas. Many pool money for bulk grocery orders made once or twice a year. Some stokvels, like the one Ms. Lengolo’s mother was a member of, are themselves microlenders, making money by giving small loans to community members at high interest rates.

Others serve less conventional purposes. “If you can imagine it, there’s a stokvel for it,” says Ms. Lengolo. She’s a member, for instance, of a stokvel that she and a group of friends use to save for one international vacation each year. There are several stokvels whose members save money to buy Le Creuset cookware.

In recent years, stokvels are increasingly being used to invest in bigger ticket items like property. Because wealth was concentrated for centuries in the hands of white South Africans, many young Black professionals still pay what’s known colloquially as a “Black tax,” sending funds home to support family members. This often makes it harder for them to buy property or start businesses on their own, compared to their white peers, Ms. Lengolo says.

“Alone, you have all these barriers, but when you pool your money, they begin to fall down,” she says. She herself, for instance, is in a stokvel whose members recently purchased a fast-food restaurant. “Most of us couldn’t have done that on our own,” she notes.

For other young South Africans, the community aspect of stokvels simply provides encouragement and accountability that a bank savings account does not.

“With my bank account, I can decide I’m saving 500 rand this month, 1,000 rand next month. What’s different with a stokvel is you’re committing to an amount and making a promise to a group of people that you’ll pay it,” says Refilwe Kgosiemang, a copy writer in Pretoria who has been a member of several stokvels. “If I break my commitment, I don’t just lose my money, I lose socially as well.”

The longer Margot Morin sat at the University Hospital in Reims waiting for the COVID-19 jab, the more doubt crept in. A colleague next to her had a brief negative reaction to the vaccine, her blood pressure climbing and her fingers tingling.

“I thought, ‘Oh là là, I’m next,’” says Ms. Morin, who is a physical therapy aide in her 50s and recently qualified to get the vaccine. “I was very skeptical. The hospital asked me if I wanted to get it and I took the day to think about it. There’s so much we still don’t know about the long-term effects.”

But Ms. Morin has worked with numerous patients who later tested positive for COVID-19. Her husband is 10 years older and her parents are in their 90s. She ultimately decided to get the vaccine to protect those around her.

“I definitely had doubts before getting it, and still do,” says Ms. Morin. “But if we want to get out of this pandemic, people need to make a decision.”

Anti-vaccine sentiment in France is at one of the highest rates in the world. A 2018 Gallup-Wellcome Trust survey of more than 140 countries showed that France had the lowest level of trust in vaccines, with a third disagreeing that they were safe.

The pandemic has only served to highlight the phenomenon. A 15-country survey conducted by Ipsos and the World Economic Forum at the end of December showed that France had the lowest rate of intent to receive the COVID-19 vaccine of those polled, at 40%, compared with China’s 80%. Between 2% and 10% of French people are considered die-hard anti-vaccination while experts put those who are “vaccine hesitant” between 25% and 70%.

Behind the reticence are previous public health scandals involving both vaccines and medications, which have eroded public trust in political and scientific institutions. And a tendency toward skepticism and discomfort with change, considered distinctive French traits, have made the vaccine rollout here challenging.

“We need to differentiate between French people who are anti-vaccination and vaccine hesitant,” says Patrick Peretti-Watel, a sociologist of public health and risk management at the French National Institute for Medical Research (INSERM).

“Those who are hesitant are not necessarily for or against, but demand reflection. It’s quite healthy in this situation where we don’t have all the answers. But we need to gain people’s confidence and teach them that until we vaccinate everyone, and think in terms of the good of the group and not the individual, we can’t have a better daily life.”

Hesitancy and hostility toward vaccines

Gaining public trust in mass vaccination campaigns is a hard sell in France. After an upsurge in cases of multiple sclerosis in the 1990s, many blamed the countrywide vaccine campaign against hepatitis B a decade earlier – even if a scientific link between the two was never formally drawn.

In 2009, Mediator, a weight-loss pill prescribed to diabetics, was taken off the market after revelations that it may have contributed to the death of up to 2,000 people. And in January 2010, the French government was forced to cancel 50 million doses of the swine flu vaccine after it found itself with an oversupply, costing hundreds of millions of euros.

Vaccine hesitancy and refusal have also been fueled by France’s extreme political and medical voices. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon have both publicly stated that they were hesitant about the COVID-19 jab, preferring to wait for more “traditional” methods.

And the controversial doctor Didier Raoult, who has pushed the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 and is often featured in the mainstream press, has been a loudspeaker for the anti-vaccine movement.

“I have never been scared of getting COVID,” says Marie Werbregue, president of the nonprofit Info Vaccins France. Ms. Werbregue is against vaccines in general and the COVID-19 shot in particular, and says vaccines played a role in her daughter developing autism. “What bothers me is having my personal liberties taken away like this.”

The current vaccination effort wasn’t helped when, early in the pandemic, the French government discouraged anyone other than sick people or front-line medical workers from wearing masks. It was later revealed that the request was made because the national mask stockpile was too low to supply the public, who felt lied to by the government according to polls.

“There is a real correlation between vaccine refusal, and resistance against political and scientific institutions,” says Antoine Bristielle, a political scientist at the Foundation Jean-Jaurès think tank. He says that trust in such institutions had been dropping even before the pandemic, but scientific institutions have seen a staggering fall – from 90% to 70% – since the pandemic began.

“There is a section of the population that can still be convinced, that aren’t 100% resistant to the idea of the vaccine,” says Mr. Bristielle. “But they demand transparency in terms of the potential side effects and the risk of financial collusion between the government and pharmaceutical companies.”

“I understand the reticence”

France has had one of the slowest vaccine rollouts, compared with countries that have begun inoculations. As of Jan. 19, France had vaccinated just under 600,000 people, while in neighboring Germany more than 1 million have been inoculated. The United Kingdom has administered a first dose to over 4 million.

France’s sluggish vaccine campaign, combined with growing fears of the British and South African variants of the virus, are slowly pushing the French toward vaccine acceptance. In a poll last week, 56% now say they intend to get vaccinated.

One social media campaign has been trying to shore up public trust even before the current pandemic. The Facebook group Les Vaxxeuses has been publicizing the importance of vaccines and the dangers of fake news since 2017.

“We teach people to verify the information they receive, offer links that explain things, or how to question the balance between benefit and risk,” says Pierre, a member of Les Vaxxeuses who does not reveal his name to the media after receiving death threats for his work. “It’s pretty hard to budge those who are totally anti-vaccine. But those who are hesitant? That’s where it can work.”

Pierre says French people are naturally resistant to change, but that people will come around as more and more get the inoculation, producing a snowball effect – especially if France can kick-start its vaccine campaign and catch up with its European neighbors.

Patrice Morin, Margot’s husband, says that seeing his wife get the vaccine and leave with just some slight arm soreness has helped assuage his doubts. Now retired, he used to work as a nurse and received one of the first, now infamous, hepatitis B vaccines.

“It took a decade for that vaccine to be required for the general population, so I understand the reticence behind getting a vaccine that is so new,” says Mr. Morin, who doesn’t yet qualify for the COVID-19 vaccine. “When they offer me the [COVID-19] vaccine, I’m going to say yes, but not without a bit of doubt in the back of my mind. I trust what doctors are saying, but when it comes to the long-term side effects, we just don’t know.”

The timing was perfect. Just a day earlier, New York City’s public schools had closed again due to rising COVID-19 rates, and students had returned to remote learning. That included nearly 60,000 schoolchildren who were without laptops or hot spots to participate in online classes or do their schoolwork. 

So when 11-year-old Daisy Hampton and her mother, Jennifer Hampton, showed up at Public School 723x@189x in the Bronx with donors Chuck and Chad Grimley and 10 Chromebooks, Deidre Nowak was ecstatic.

“Christmas early, honestly,” says Ms. Nowak, unit coordinator at the school, which primarily serves students on the autism spectrum. She explains that 17 of the school’s students needed the laptops, including one who had not received a device since the pandemic began. Students with disabilities who lack laptops and daily instruction fall especially behind, she adds.  

As New York’s Department of Education (DOE) was not able to provide laptops in time, Ms. Nowak found herself turning to other teachers via social media for help. This led her to Daisy.

“Someone had posted, ‘A friend’s daughter is doing this really great thing, helping kids who don’t have devices in the DOE,’” Ms. Nowak says. “So, I thought, let me just try, and I emailed. It led us to getting wonderful laptops.”

At the heart of Including You – Daisy’s organization focusing on youths forging friendships with peers who have disabilities – is Daisy’s determination to do something about the world around her. The much-needed work of this seventh grader has been spreading by word-of-mouth, thanks especially to her efforts to get laptops into the hands of the many students who need them. Including You’s goal is “to be as inclusive as possible.”

“Closing the digital divide is part of inclusion,” Daisy says. “It’s an ongoing issue as there’s more technology, and as more schoolwork is being put online.”

Mother-daughter marches

A passion for social justice was instilled in Daisy early on. Her mother works in behavior change communications, which aims to promote changes in people’s attitudes and behaviors, and has long been active in education reform. She has taken part in education and social justice marches, including the Disability March starting in 2018, and the 2019 Best Buddies Friendship Walk.

Marching alongside her mother helped Daisy develop a practice of helping others through activism. “If you see something,” Daisy explains, “you find ways to take action. And that difference can save people or change the community for the better.”

Even before COVID-19, Daisy was aware that some New York City students did not have access to laptops. Some of Daisy’s classmates would ask to use hers. By the time the pandemic hit, the glaring disparity could not be ignored.

Ann Hermes/Staff

Opening boxes of equipment on Dec. 5, 2020, at home in New York, Daisy Hampton works with donors to connect students with the technology they need for remote learning.

“You had 30-something kids in your class,” Daisy’s mother says to her. “I never saw more than 10, but that may have been Zoom fatigue. But I knew that there were several kids who would not attend, and they were very poor. They would never have phones. There are many kids like that in the city.”

Initially, Daisy wrote letters of support to first responders and mentored other students through Best Buddies, an organization that works with people with disabilities. But then, one day, Daisy told her mother something that Ms. Hampton says came out of the blue: “I want to do something to help kids who have disabilities or face income inequality,” Daisy recalls saying.  

A connection in Mississippi

Including You was founded earlier this year as a mentorship program that allowed young people with disabilities to gain a friend from beyond the special education community. Last summer, as the Hamptons traveled home after vacationing in New York’s Hudson Valley region, the program’s scope expanded. As the family chatted with their driver, he told them how many families in the region could not afford to buy laptops.

“That made me realize how widespread this issue is,” Daisy says. “It’s not just the city. It’s all over that people are facing this, and I just think how more people need to be aware of it and see how they can help.”

To inspire their own initiative, they were put in contact with Family Biz Builder, a youth training and development nonprofit in Tunica County in Mississippi. In March, Family Biz Builder developed a youth mentorship program for local children, many of whom live below the poverty line. When in-person mentoring was no longer possible due to social distancing recommendations, the program sought laptops to establish virtual connections instead.

“Daisy and Jennifer donated 25 laptops to service the kids, the mentees, that we have,” says Peggie Henderson, Family Biz Builder’s executive director. “We are constantly working to get more laptops. We have 50 kids in the program, and we’re halfway there.”

The Hamptons have also donated 20 hot spots to the nonprofit and have arranged for Including You’s young mentors to be trained to volunteer with Family Biz Builder. The mentors at Including You were initially Daisy’s friends and classmates at school. But as word spreads of her initiative, a waiting list has grown to nearly 30 young people nationwide eager to volunteer their time. Daisy recruits these mentors herself and holds regular video meetings with them.

Waitlists for help  

As Daisy began to donate laptops to students in New York City, teachers from across the city have been reaching out to her. She and her mother sometimes receive donations of used laptops, which allows Daisy to practice her robotics skills to make any necessary repairs.

“Schools are asking for 50 computers and 75 hot spots,” Ms. Hampton says. “And we’re like, we’re just a mother-daughter here. And they’re writing to her, sending these long things and sometimes she’s responding, and I have to say, ‘This is an 11-year-old!’”

Despite her young age and school commitments, Daisy dedicates time to Including You almost daily. After school, she often goes to other schools to deliver laptops or meet with donors, communicates with those seeking devices, and writes thank-you notes to donors. She also posts on her social media to raise funds, and writes blog posts on Including You’s website.

By mid-January, Daisy and her mother expect to have distributed 150 to 175 laptops, and the Grimleys to have given Ms. Nowak the seven additional computers her school needs.

There is an extensive waiting list, Ms. Hampton says, as thousands of New York public school students are still without laptops. But Daisy is determined to keep working to get them into students’ hands.

“I’ve learned how these little issues I noticed can make big differences in people’s lives,” says Daisy, who turned 12 in mid-January. “I think that if you have the right motivation, the right inspiration, you can do it, at any age.” 

AP

A protester from the Uighur community living in Turkey holds an anti-China placard during a protest in Istanbul against Beijing's oppression of Muslim Uighurs in western Xinjiang province.

In his inaugural speech Wednesday, President Joe Biden set a task for himself to bring “America together, uniting our people.” As big as that task might be, it was made slightly easier Tuesday by the outgoing Trump administration. The State Department agreed with a key foreign-policy position of Mr. Biden and officially designated China’s treatment of its minority Uyghurs as genocide. In a rare case of unity, two presidents have now given voice to at least a million voiceless people in secret concentration camps in China where they are being tortured, forcibly sterilized, or even killed.

Unlike many domestic issues, American leaders have worked hard to maintain a bipartisan foreign policy, especially in trying to prevent mass atrocities. Such unity remains a template for tackling issues such as race, poverty, and lately, the coronavirus. It has been sustained by the fact that the United States has a record of trying to end genocide based on the ideal of protecting innocent people during a conflict or under a dictatorship.

Since 2017, China’s rulers have ruthlessly repressed the mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in its northwestern region of Xinjiang. The 11 million or so Uyghurs and other groups have found few countries to defend them. Now the U.S. has put the Chinese government on notice that bilateral ties depend on Beijing adhering to the international convention against genocide.

In his designation of genocide inside China, Mike Pompeo, Mr. Tump’s secretary of state, said: “So long as we remain silent, party elites will continue to commit human-rights abuses against the people of China with impunity. We cannot allow this cycle of evil to continue.” Mr. Biden, meanwhile, has made clear his commitment to preventing genocide by nominating Samantha Power as a member of his National Security Council and as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Author of the book “A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide,” Ms. Power is a “leading voice for humane and principled American engagement in the world,” Mr. Biden said.

Rallying Americans around the task of ending the most heinous of crimes has a long history, going back to the liberation of Jews during World War II. Once again, the U.S. appears committed to helping a minority group under threat, this time in China. For Mr. Biden, such unity abroad is a good start to finding the unity at home he promises as the new president.