In the summer of 1999, law student Michael Migliore was working as a legal aide in then-Sen. Joe Biden’s office in Wilmington, Delaware. While at a staff picnic at the Biden home, he ran into the senator himself in the basement. 

“Sit down!” Mr. Biden commanded. A lengthy conversation ensued. 

“We ended up talking – I’m not kidding – an hour and a half,” says Mr. Migliore, now counsel to the New Castle County Council in Delaware. “We talked about everything under the sun – family, law school, civil rights, legislation he had worked on.”

“Whether you’re royalty or a regular person, he has a knack for really relating to people, which most people don’t have,” Mr. Migliore adds. “He makes you feel special.” 

Lana Harris/AP/File

Sen. Joe Biden, Democrat of Delaware, holds his daughter Ashley for a family portrait as Vice President George H.W. Bush reenacts his administering of the oath of office on Capitol Hill in 1985.

Stories like this about Mr. Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, are legion. And if they involve a personal struggle – a loved one lost, a battle with stuttering, as he has had – Mr. Biden is on it. His own stories of loss – of his first wife and baby daughter in a car crash and the death from cancer decades later of his son Beau – have given him a well of empathy and a sense of purpose.

This is the personal Mr. Biden that many constituents and those around him know. To some, he is an everyman, the scrappy champion of the working class from Scranton, Pennsylvania. To others, he’s the ultimate Washington insider, a creature of the Senate who spent 47 years in “the swamp.” 

Supporters see the former vice president as a savvy moderate who knows how to reach across the aisle. Critics charge he’s an aging relic, hopelessly out of step with his own party and even, to some Republicans, a “Trojan horse for socialism.” 

After 50 years in politics, Mr. Biden is, in other words, many different things to many different people. But almost everyone agrees on who Mr. Biden isn’t: President Donald Trump.

Tonight, Americans will get to see the contrast themselves, when Mr. Biden and President Trump go toe-to-toe in a 90-minute televised debate, the first of three. Whether it can shake the dynamic of the presidential contest off its moorings seems unlikely. Mr. Trump has been consistently behind in national polls and in key battleground states, though nobody is counting him out. 

But as the nation faces what may be its most consequential election in generations – a choice made all the more stark amid a sudden, high-octane Supreme Court confirmation battle – the race may ultimately pivot on this question: Is being the anti-Trump enough to win Mr. Biden the White House?

Polls show the former longtime senator from Delaware doesn’t inspire intense passion among supporters so much as a kind of basic comfort. But the flip side is that he doesn’t seem to inspire hatred, either. 

Four years ago, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton engendered such dislike that many swing voters framed the choice between her and Mr. Trump as the lesser of two evils. At Trump events today, anti-Hillary merchandise still abounds, while Mr. Biden seems almost an afterthought.

Matt Rourke/AP

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden greets a parishioner at a Baptist church in North Charleston, South Carolina, on Feb. 23, 2020.

“He’s a 77-year-old comfortable shoe with 47 years of Washington experience,” says Ari Fleischer, who served in the George W. Bush administration. “People have a feel for him. He’s not Hillary – he’s likable enough.” 

Perhaps Mr. Biden’s biggest liability is his age. If elected, he’d be the oldest first-term president in American history – by eight years – and to some voters, he’s not as vigorous as he used to be.

Still, that may be undercut somewhat by the fact that Mr. Trump himself currently holds the record for oldest president ever elected to a first term.

And Democratic hands who go way back with Mr. Biden say he’s up to the task. He would bring his decades of experience, as well as his people skills, to address the challenge of a lifetime – setting the nation and its politics on a path to some kind of normality and sense of unity. 

“By virtue of his personality and his willingness to listen to others, that’s a good way to begin the process,” says Leon Panetta, a former member of Congress and Cabinet secretary in two Democratic administrations. “But that doesn’t guarantee success.”

A party moving leftward

Today, Mr. Biden’s immediate goal is winning on Nov. 3. And regardless of what the polls say, or the multiple crises facing the nation, Democrats know that unseating an incumbent president won’t be easy.

The last to succeed was Bill Clinton, the charismatic young governor of Arkansas who rebranded the Democratic Party toward the center.

That was 1992. Twenty-eight years later, Democratic energy has shifted leftward, as the nation has grown more diverse and party activists focus on income inequality and racial grievances. The pandemic, economic turmoil, urban unrest, and now the high-stakes Supreme Court vacancy all add urgency to the November vote. 

Roll Call/AP/File

Senators Biden and Strom Thurmond, a Republican from South Carolina and onetime segregationist, chat in the chamber in 1995.

In many ways, the Washington in which Mr. Biden thrived no longer exists. In his presidential campaign, the centrist Mr. Biden has shifted leftward to meet the Democratic base – but not fully. He supports adding a “public option” to the Obama-era health insurance law, but does not back “Medicare for All.” He has plans to address climate change, but did not endorse the Green New Deal. He promises to roll back most, but not all, of the Trump tax cuts. He opposes cutting funding for police. 

By mid-September, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described social democrat and runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination, was urging the Biden campaign to do more to excite the left. 

But Mr. Biden clearly favors a bigger Democratic tent, as seen at the party’s August convention, which featured several prominent anti-Trump Republicans. To wit: Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich was given a four-minute speaking slot, while Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a darling of the left, got just a minute and a half. 

The calculation was that anti-Trump fervor would spur liberal Democrats to vote for Mr. Biden anyway – and that appealing to suburban moderates in battleground states was paramount. 

Now, the Supreme Court vacancy has further galvanized partisans on both sides. Mr. Trump’s quick move to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a hero to the left, heralds a reinforced conservative majority for years to come – a source of alarm to liberals and delight to conservatives. 

From abortion and gun rights to affirmative action and health care, the implications are potentially huge. The question is how marginal voters – undecided voters, soft supporters of one candidate or the other, or those unsure if they’ll vote at all – might be swayed by the court battle.

George Widman/AP/File

Sen. Joe Biden walks with his wife, Jill, after announcing his first candidacy for president in 1987.

At midsummer, the enthusiasm gap between the nominees was wide. Some 66% of Trump supporters said they backed their candidate strongly, versus just 46% of Biden supporters who said the same of their candidate, according to a Pew Research Center poll. So, while being an acceptable alternative has its advantages, the relative lack of excitement over Mr. Biden could portend danger, too – the possibility that some of his voters don’t bother to turn out. 

Alison Young, a Republican strategist based in Philadelphia, says the enthusiasm gap could be key. Even though Mr. Biden is more conventionally “likable,” she says, Trump supporters like the president’s “bombastic nature, that he goes after people.” 

In the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, Democrats have special concerns about turnout – specifically that the state’s vote-by-mail rules could suppress turnout by discouraging some people from even trying to vote. 

For Mr. Biden, Pennsylvania has personal meaning. Though he and his family left Scranton amid financial difficulties when he was 10 years old, his “origin story” is very much tied to his place of birth. Out-of-town reporters reinforce the Scranton angle with regular visits, if only to make the city a stand-in for blue-collar America. CNN staged a town hall with Mr. Biden there Sept. 17. 

There may be something to Mr. Biden’s outreach to white non-college-educated voters. In a mid-September Reuters poll, Mr. Trump’s edge among that demographic nationally had shrunk to 12 percentage points, well below his 34-point margin over Mrs. Clinton in 2016. 

Getty Images/File

Senator-elect Biden and his first wife, Neilia, cut his 30th birthday cake at a party in Wilmington, Delaware, on Nov. 20, 1972.

In Pennsylvania, an electorate that skews older also makes the state a stand-in for outreach to those over age 65. Notably, polls show Mr. Biden beating Mr. Trump among that cohort – a trend that, if it holds, would make him the first Democratic nominee to win voters over 65 in two decades.

But if Mr. Biden’s Scranton roots give him a lift in that part of Pennsylvania, that doesn’t necessarily help in other parts of the state.

“A lot of us see him as a guy from Delaware,” says Bill Werts, an engineer from Greensburg, Pennsylvania. “Most of us see him as a guy from Washington.” 

Mr. Werts voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, but says he plans to vote for Mr. Biden in November, albeit without enthusiasm. 

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s miles away from Donald Trump,” Mr. Werts continues, saying Mr. Biden has preferable values. “But the progress that needs to be made will not be made by Joe Biden. He’s a return to 2008, 2012, 1996. He is not the visionary that is needed.” 

Will young Black voters turn out?

One critical bloc Democrats are eyeing nervously is young Black voters. In a July poll, American University researchers found that in six battleground states – Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, and Georgia – only 47% of Black voters ages 18 to 29 plan to vote for Mr. Biden, compared with 70% of those ages 30 to 59 and 86% of those 60 and over. 

It’s not that young Black voters are flocking to the president; it’s that many, 21%, won’t vote at all. Another 12% plan to vote for someone else, 12% aren’t sure, and 8% are for Mr. Trump. 

Greg Gibson/AP/File

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden points at Clarence Thomas during Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991. Mr. Biden has been criticized for mishandling the hearings, which included accusations of sexual harassment against Mr. Thomas by Anita Hill.

Some Democrats are having flashbacks to 2016, when 4.4 million Obama voters from 2012 stayed home – a third of them Black, according to data analysts. In an election that turned on just 77,000 votes in three states, that shift may have been decisive. 

There’s also a gender gap among Black voters. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll taken in March found that 24% of Black men approved of Mr. Trump, while just 6% of Black women did. 

Democratic strategist Joel Payne points to younger, less-educated Black men as the “soft place” for Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump, he says, has a certain “cachet” with some in this bloc. 

“There is a machismo that Trump has manufactured that can be attractive to some Black male voters,” says Mr. Payne, director of African American advertising for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. “A not insignificant number of Black men were falsely conditioned to view Donald Trump as a stand-in for success before he was a political figure.”

And what about Mr. Biden’s comments that he could work with anyone in the Senate, even Southern segregationists in his early years? Or his support for 1994 crime legislation that is now considered unduly harsh, especially toward people of color? 

Those were issues, along with busing to integrate schools, that California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris attacked Mr. Biden for during the presidential primaries. Now Senator Harris is his running mate, the first woman of color to serve on a major party presidential ticket, and could help shore up Black support for Mr. Biden. 

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP/File

Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Mr. Biden share a laugh before a candidates forum in Chicago in August 2007.

More broadly, there’s little question Mr. Biden enjoys a deep reservoir of goodwill with many African Americans. Many feel a personal connection to the former vice president that’s about more than his eight years serving alongside former President Barack Obama. He also, they say, exudes a basic humanity.

Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina – the No. 3 Democrat in the House and its highest-ranking African American – swooped in three days before his state’s crucial primary on Feb. 29 and endorsed Mr. Biden. Congressman Clyburn has been credited by some with rescuing the former VP’s candidacy. 

In an interview, Mr. Clyburn insists it was all Mr. Biden. “First and foremost,” he says, “Biden has by and large been very sensitive – and I would say empathetic – to the life experiences of the African American voter.”

After the 2015 massacre at a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, Mr. Biden attended services there. And in a Feb. 26 town hall, Mr. Biden had a breakout moment when he reconnected with a pastor whose wife died in the shooting. 

Mr. Clyburn mentions how his wife, Emily, who died a year ago, used to talk regularly to Mr. Biden. “She told me, the party needs Joe Biden to carry the mantle against Trump,” he says. “So when I stood up for Joe, I was really doing what my wife told me to do.” 

Mr. Clyburn recalls how his wife liked campaign billboards, which Mr. Biden apparently knew. A month ago, the congressman got a call from the former vice president: “I want to put some billboards up in honor of Emily,” he said, wanting to make sure it was OK. 

“That’s the kind of guy he is,” Mr. Clyburn says. “He remembers those conversations.” 

Family ties

As in many presidential campaigns, families are an issue. The Biden clan is as tight as they come. His sister, Valerie Biden Owens, has managed or advised all his campaigns from the very start of his political career. When he traveled the world as vice president, he often brought a grandchild along. 

One of the more controversial aspects of Mr. Biden’s candidacy is his son Hunter Biden. If Beau Biden, the former vice president’s older son, was the golden child – attorney general of Delaware and Iraq War veteran – then Hunter is the one best known for murky business deals and a turbulent personal life. “Where’s Hunter?” is a regular Trump barb.

A GOP Senate report released Sept. 23 found that Hunter’s role at a Ukrainian energy company was “problematic,” but didn’t show that it influenced the then-vice president or U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

Of course, Mr. Trump’s own dealings with Ukraine – including an apparent request to get the Ukrainian government to investigate Vice President Biden – lay at the center of the president’s 2019 impeachment. 

And relatives of powerful American politicians on both sides of the aisle have long had business interests that intersect with their family members’ government activities. The Trump family is awash in alleged conflicts of interest.

When asked by reporters last year about the business activities of both his son Hunter and his brothers, James and Frank, Mr. Biden promised “an absolute wall” between the government and his family’s financial interests if he’s elected president.

Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, suggests the need for a “firewall” to protect the president.

“You just have very clear instructions,” says Mr. Painter, now a Democrat and law professor at the University of Minnesota. 

Those instructions, he says, need to go to every political appointee throughout the administration: “They’re not to do business with members of the Biden family or people who drop the Biden family name or say that they’re business associates with Hunter Biden or Vice President Biden’s brothers.”

At home and abroad

Biden sightings around Wilmington, before the pandemic, contribute to his everyman image. One resident speaks of running into the former vice president and some grandchildren at Home Depot, buying a lamp at the self-checkout.

Democratic National Convention/AP

Grandchildren of presidential candidate Joe Biden – including Finnegan, Hunter, Natalie, Naomi, and Maisy – lead the Pledge of Allegiance during the virtual Democratic National Convention on Aug. 17, 2020.

“He went about his purchase like any other customer, while also pausing for photos with some of the staff,” says the Wilmington resident, who works for the city and requested anonymity. “Delaware is a unique environment. Folks in power are also your neighbor.” 

Mr. Biden’s profile also extends well beyond U.S. borders, going back decades, as a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell tells of a trip he took to Bosnia many years ago, after the war there had ended. When he told his interpreter where he was from, she perked up.

“We know Delaware. We know Joe Biden,” she said, according to the former governor, a Democrat. “Joe Biden is the only one who stood up for us.” 

Mr. Biden touts his international connections as a selling point to voters who like his promise to repair ties to allies and restore U.S. leadership on global issues, such as climate change and public health. Trump supporters counter that he’s been on the wrong side of some crucial decisions, including his vote against the Gulf War in 1991 and for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and his opposition to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

As a senator, Mr. Biden also had a habit of turning up in early presidential primary states. Former Republican Rep. Melissa Hart of Pennsylvania recalls running into then-Senator Biden in South Carolina around 2004, at a party at a horse track. 

“He was a friendly guy,” says the former congresswoman, a Trump supporter. “I like Joe, and I think a lot of people like Joe.”

But, Ms. Hart adds, “we never would have gone to him to get something big done. He was very focused on his issues, on what would benefit Delaware.” 

Retro or radical?

As a senator, Mr. Biden was part of the old boys’ network, most vividly on display when he presided over the 1992 confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Mr. Biden is seen by many as having mishandled the accusations of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, and last year he called Ms. Hill to express his “regret.” At the time, Ms. Hill said the call left her unsatisfied. Recently, however, she said she plans to vote for him in November and would be willing to work with a President Biden on issues of sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

Mike Segar/Reuters/File

Mr. Biden, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, stands with his mother, Jean, at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

And even if Mr. Biden’s long membership in the clubby Senate hurts his image with some voters, others see it as a strength. He has a demonstrated ability to work in a bipartisan fashion and knows how the levers of power work, albeit in a system increasingly ground down by dysfunction and distrust.

The larger point may be that Mr. Biden, on his third and final attempt at the presidency, has slowly but surely moved into the 21st century. And sometimes he’s even been ahead of the game, as in 2012, when he endorsed same-sex marriage before Mr. Obama did. 

“Retro or radical?” the cover of The Economist recently asked. The answer may be neither. 

If he loses in November, conventional wisdom is likely to coalesce around the notion that being broadly “acceptable” is not enough. 

But if he wins, the conclusion might be that in this age of extreme polarization – when partisans at both ends of the spectrum are invoking civil war and even cooler heads are wondering how the American experiment will survive – maybe a president who lowers the temperature offers the best way forward. 

Young voters, in particular, seem skeptical of that idea. 

“With younger millennials, there’s a distrust in Joe Biden,” says Mr. Payne, the Democratic strategist. “But there’s a distrust of everyone in Washington.”

Moe Vela, who advised the then-vice president on Latino and LGBTQ issues, hopes that stories of Mr. Biden’s decency can help break through the cynicism. 

Four years after Mr. Vela left the White House, he got a call from Mr. Biden’s office: “We have something for you.” The vice president, who is Roman Catholic, had just met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, and had several sets of rosary beads blessed. He gave one to Mr. Vela. 

“I’m not a practicing Catholic anymore, but I will be buried with that rosary,” Mr. Vela says. “It’s more than a religious symbol. It’s about personal friendship, faith, and love.” 

Staff writer Story Hinckley contributed to this article.

Guido Oppizzi hoped that State Street, the main thoroughfare in his adopted hometown of Santa Barbara, California, and home to his popular bistro, could someday become a pedestrian promenade reminiscent of the cafe-packed piazzas in his native Italy.  

“Then the pandemic hit,” he says. “It wasn’t the way anyone would have wanted it to happen, but the city decided in May to close State Street – and that actually saved my restaurant.” 

Outdoor seating at Oppi’z expanded from seating for four to 50 thanks to alfresco dining on State Street, which is now oozing with the European-style ambiance Mr. Oppizzi had dreamed of. 

All over the United States – in other small cities like Boulder, Colorado; and Portland, Maine; to mega metropolises such as San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami, and New York – streets have been closed, sidewalks opened, and parking spaces converted into “parklets” to create outdoor dining opportunities amid pandemic restrictions. 

Even if restaurants in some cities have opened indoors, capacity is limited, and diners wary of indoor spaces often opt instead for takeout, which by itself cannot keep restaurants afloat. 

The nod to alfresco dining has provided critical relief to the restaurant industry, which has been especially hard hit by COVID-19. 

A National Restaurant Association survey recently found that 1 in 6 restaurants in the U.S. have shuttered during the pandemic and 40% of those still open say that, without federal relief, they are likely to close within six months. The organization forecasts that restaurants will lose $240 billion this year.  

Thousands of chefs and restaurant owners have formed a trade group, the Independent Restaurant Coalition, and are calling for a $120 billion grant to help them keep their stoves lit through 2020. 

But with the change of seasons, an air of uncertainty now looms. Winter is coming, and for many in the restaurant industry, it brings a deeper chill.  

In Portland, Maine, where several downtown streets have closed to traffic since June 1, restaurateurs are glad for the stretch of dry, sun-drenched summer days that filled their plein-air tables and boosted bottom lines. But as autumn’s chill moves in, they are looking ahead. 

“We can’t afford not to,” says Arryan Decatur, general manager of the East Ender, a New American bistro.

He and East Ender owner Karl Deuben, along with their neighbors, are petitioning the city to extend the Nov. 1 deadline for reopening the street. He’s also busy trying out heat lamps, curating new dishes for the takeout menu, and researching ventilation systems for when they open their cozy, two-story restaurant. 

Carlo Allegri/Reuters

People eat at a mostly empty restaurant with tables on the street, in the financial district during the coronavirus pandemic in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, September 9, 2020.

No one can afford to sit idle. Others are also pleading with city leaders for more time outdoors, and investing in tents, sophisticated air-filtration systems, and propane heat lamps. 

Indeed, among the enormous challenges facing restaurateurs this year is the need to balance hospitality with new safety protocols and also to plan for seasonal changes. Even in an outdoor setting, many health authorities advise that restaurants follow social distancing, staff wear masks (and diners wear them when not seated), and cleanliness and sanitation remain on the front burner. 

“We have been as eager to create a fun experience as we have been careful in our planning,” says Mr. Decatur. 

“Grateful to my community”  

For many restaurants, local communities have been a boon. 

In Boston’s South End, where streets are heavily traveled and not easily closed to traffic, some restaurants got a boost from grassroots efforts. 

At Frenchie, for example, owner Sandrine Rossi tried unsuccessfully for months to obtain a permit for outdoor seating. Eventually, patrons in her neighborhood joined with the South End Business Alliance to clinch permits for four parking spaces in front of the French bistro, quadrupling seating from about eight to 30. 

“I am so grateful to my community,” says Ms. Rossi. “When the lockdown happened, I got really scared and thought I wouldn’t make it, but today we’re in good shape. It’s such a blessing.” 

Ms. Rossi and her husband are both from the south of France and would love to visit family there soon, but they don’t feel they can leave just yet. With the change in seasons and the deadline approaching for reopening those parking spaces, she’s bracing for what’s next.  

“We can’t predict people’s behavior,” she says. “We will have to continue to rely on our incredibly supportive community to stay alive.” 

Grassroots efforts also helped buoy 11 restaurants in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Chatham on Chicago’s South Side thanks to the 75th Street Boardwalk Project, an initiative to transform this neighborhood into an attractive outdoor dining area. 

Using $250,000 raised by the city and donors, local artists and community youth transformed plywood once used to board up restaurants during Black Lives Matter protests into material for lime-green parklets, which provide space for dining and children’s play areas. 

Brown Sugar Bakery is one of the neighborhood’s businesses that has benefited from the expanded seating and pretty, eye-catching spaces. Co-owner Zoie Reams speaks glowingly of the project not just for its boost to her award-winning bakery, but also for the neighborhood. 

“I love that the wood is being used for something so positive and exciting,” she says. “It’s transformed our community. People don’t always think about how a community looks. It can look desolate, but changes like these – lime-green paint, plants, games for kids – can really change one’s mindset.” 

“A happy-ish ending”

Perhaps no city has been more dramatically changed by pedestrianized streets than New York, where some 10,000 restaurants have opened outdoor dining on 87 streets and nine pedestrian plazas. Many streets are only car-free for alfresco dining from Friday afternoons to Sunday nights, but the initiative has been a boon to restaurants and a much-needed morale boost for residents. 

“New York has done this so well,” says Mike Lydon, founder of the urban planning organization Street Plans. “It’s not easy in this huge city to get permission to do anything, but the city quickly realized it could not process and oversee every application, so it provided safety criteria that restaurants had to meet and then let them self-certify. Permits could then be issued in just a couple of days.” 

The initiative, he says, has boosted restaurants, as well as access to public spaces, a sense of community, and basic livability. 

“New York was brutalized by the pandemic in March, and there was still a lot of trauma in May,” he says. “But New York being New York, the city has a strong sense of identity and a spirit that we’re here for the collective good, so people have been sticking to the program, wearing masks on the subway and all.” 

Mr. Lydon is optimistic that when restaurants can open indoors at 25% capacity on Sept. 30, as was recently announced, it will help business when the temperatures turn nippy. 

“Everyone knows, though, that won’t be enough,” he says, adding that he’s game to follow the lead of Nordic countries and dine outside in January if he can sit beside a heat lamp wrapped in a blanket. 

This will now be an option, as the city recently announced that outdoor dining, originally scheduled to end Oct. 31, will be permitted year-round. 

Fellow New Yorker Henry Rinehart, a former restaurant owner, also hopes diners will adopt this Scandinavian model to support restaurateurs. “In so-called normal times,” he explains, “restaurant folks are highly motivated, compliant, and careful guardians of public health, and this year, they’ve demonstrated those qualities even more than ever.” 

“If we as consumers can treat food-service workers as our partners and do whatever we can to support them, even if it means bundling up,” he adds, “there’s a pretty good chance for a happy-ish ending.” 

Editor’s note: As a public service, we have removed our paywall for all pandemic-related stories.

In his poem “Harlem,” African American poet Langston Hughes describes what could go wrong when hopes and aspirations are interrupted – or sidelined altogether – because of powerful forces beyond one’s control. But the young people of color I’ve talked with – former students of mine at Compton College – aren’t giving up on their dreams, despite the detours they’ve encountered due to the pandemic. 

No computer, but a love of learning

Racheal Gaffney, 27, a biracial restaurant cashier, has put her dream of earning an associate degree on the back burner for now. A lover of contemporary art museums and Kabuki theater, Racheal stopped attending school because most of the colleges in her home state of California have gone to online learning and she doesn’t have a computer.

For the time being, Racheal works part time, hangs out with friends, and dotes on her 2-year-old niece, Royalty. She also consumes social media ferociously, especially posts about the ongoing demonstrations against police brutality and in favor of the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I proudly wear a BLM T-shirt and dare a Karen to get in my face,” Racheal laughs, referring to the slang term for white women who assert their racial privilege, sometimes by falsely accusing nonwhites of wrongdoing. The steady barrage of news stories about Black people being killed by police has made Racheal fearful of being racially profiled and harassed. And the pandemic has forced her to stay in close quarters, instead of being out and about as much as she used to be. That’s not all bad, though. Racheal says she feels more comfortable “around my people – Blacks and Mexicans.”

Yet she recognizes that race relations are nuanced. “I know not all white people are racist,” she says. “In fact, I saw a sign painted on the side of a house in the white area of Redondo Beach that said, ‘No justice, no peace.’”

Racheal says she has no intention of letting this delay in her schooling stop her from graduating. She is saving up to buy a laptop and plans to return to college.

Still law school bound

Courtesy of Robyn McGee

Stephanie Zacatares and her father attend Compton College instructor Robyn McGee's book signing. Ms. Zacatares now attends UC Santa Barbara remotely. After the pandemic hit, she moved back home with her family in Los Angeles and advocates for Temporary Protected Status for immigrants.

Stephanie Zacatares, 23, is persevering, too. She was shocked when she found out her dream school, University of California, Santa Barbara had shut down on-campus classes because of the pandemic. That meant she would likely complete her undergraduate studies via remote learning from her home in Los Angeles. Despite this change in circumstances, Stephanie still plans to attend law school and become a lawyer.

Stephanie’s father, Mario, inspired her passion for social justice. “My dad is a TPS [Temporary Protected Status] holder from El Salvador and has had TPS for over 20 years. He is currently awaiting his green card and hopefully will finally become a U.S. resident.”

The road for TPS recipients recently became more precarious when the Trump administration ended TPS status for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan. However, a lawsuit opposing the decision has been filed and an injunction has halted implementation of it for now. Stephanie doesn’t think the ruling will affect her father, but she believes immigrants overall would be treated more fairly under a different administration.

“For the past four years, the current president has demonstrated through his actions and his words [that] he is not willing to work with undocumented immigrants,” Stephanie says, “especially not people of color.”

Outside of school, Stephanie works with the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group formed, as its website explains, “to save Temporary Protected Status for all beneficiaries ... and to devise legislation that creates a path to permanent residency ...”

Overall, she says, “We could be doing a much better job if we would all agree that others’ safety is just as important as our own.”

That conviction drives her determination not to let the pandemic prevent her from achieving her goals. She may have lost the rich campus experience she’d hoped for, but she’s not giving up on her higher education.

Always moving forward

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in South Korea, demonstrators took to the streets in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and in acknowledgement of the racism immigrants experience there. That’s the context where U.S. Army Specialist Anthony Caro, 23, finds himself living out his dream.

Courtesy of Anthony Caro

Anthony Caro, a former humanities student at Compton College in Los Angeles, is serving in the U.S. military in Seoul, Korea, where he says he sees the virtues of focusing on collective well-being in a pandemic.

Always on a fast track, Anthony began taking community college classes at the age of 16, went on to study philosophy at UC Berkeley for a couple of years, and is currently taking online classes at Arizona State University. On Nov. 18, 2018, Anthony married Mitzi Pérez-Caro, a teacher. He entered the military two days later.

“Because of the pandemic, I’m restricted to staying on base here at Camp Humphreys,” he explains. “l haven’t seen my wife … since February. ... I had plans to travel all [around] Asia, but those were put on hold. My Mexican grandparents were also due to visit me, but those plans have been postponed for now.”

Because of the high number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., Anthony is not allowed to travel home to California either, but he finds a lot to appreciate about his current location. “South Korea is a very disciplined country,” he says. While South Korea was in shelter in place, the United States was still fighting over toilet paper. People here think of the collective rather than just of themselves.”

That focus on the collective rings true to Anthony. It’s part of the reason he founded Citizens Power Network, a nonprofit educating citizens about the importance of voting and civic engagement. Doing what’s best for others also helps him make peace with the roadblocks the pandemic has put in his path. Even if his military experience isn’t exactly what he’d imagined, he’s still living his dream of being a soldier.

Editor’s note: As a public service, all our pandemic coverage is free.

Damon Dahlen/University of Texas Press, Renee Matous/University of Texas Press

Kavitha A. Davidson and Jessica Luther are co-authors of “Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan.”

Fans face a quandary when sports scandals erupt. Do they keep watching or not? Jessica Luther and Kavitha A. Davidson know the feeling. They’ve written “Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan,” a guide on how to remain a fan while still recognizing the problems in sports. Ms. Luther is the author of “Unsportsmanlike Conduct: College Football and the Politics of Rape,” and Ms. Davidson is editorial director and host of “The Lead,” a podcast from the sports website The Athletic. 

Q: What issues complicate fans’ love of their sports?

Ms. Luther: There are so many. We look at the issues of brain trauma inflicted during sports; the physical and financial damage that mega events like the Olympics and the World Cup do to local communities; how hostile sporting spaces are to LGBTQ+ and non-binary athletes; the exploitation of the labor of college athletes.

Ms. Davidson: We also include racism and exclusion in “high-brow” sports like tennis and golf; violence against women – when that player you love is accused of doing something you hate; and when you see the failed promise of the supposed benefits of a stadium in the community you grew up in.

Q: Why do fans feel so compelled to defend their sports teams?

Ms. Luther:  For many people, who they root for – teams, athletes, schools – is part of their identity and binds them into a community. Criticism of those teams feels like criticism of the person who cheers for them.  

Ms. Davidson: We try to answer this as a central question in the book – what is it, exactly, about sports fandom that keeps us coming back, that makes us so viscerally defensive? Much of it has to do with how, when, and why our fandom forms – it’s usually wrapped up in our family, in our city, in our roots. And for those of us who were born here but whose parents weren’t, it might be an attempt to put down some roots in our city and our country. So much of my feeling like I belong as an American is wrapped up in just being able to talk to people about baseball. 

Q: Which issue has given you, personally, the most conflicted feelings?

Ms. Luther: Certainly how teams and universities handle reports of gendered violence. I have spent a lot of my career working with and telling the stories of people harmed, who had reports of that harm ignored or worse because the person who harmed them is part of a sports team. [In 2015, she co-wrote a Texas Monthly story about a Baylor University football player facing sexual assault charges who was still expected to play for university. The story made national headlines and garnered an award from Sport Illustrated.] 

Ms. Davidson: The gendered violence chapter was the hardest but most cathartic for me to write. And I was so honored to be able to write it with Jessica, who has such an understanding and sensitivity for survivors and how to report on this. I’m a survivor myself, and I don’t shy away from it but I also try not to let it define me. [Davidson wrote about her sexual assault for espnW, a sports site for women, in 2016.] At the same time, it very much does, and it informs a lot of my experience as a sports fan. That in itself is difficult to reconcile; I struggle with that every day. But being able to talk to fans who face the same dilemma made me feel as though I’m not alone, and I hope others can take that away from the chapter, too. 

University of Texas Press

“Loving Sports When They Don't Love You Back: Dilemmas of the Modern Fan” by Jessica Luther and Kavitha A. Davidson, University of Texas Press, 336 pp.

Q: Are sports political?

Ms. Luther: Yes. What sports get shown on TV, which sports get money and resources, which athletes get to compete without scrutiny of their bodies, which athletes are seen as expendable by owners and fans, which people make decisions about and create sports media – all of these things are lower-case “political” decisions. The racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, etc., that courses through this society shows up all the time in sports in subtle but terrible ways, ways that make certain people feel unloved by sports. But sports are also big-P “Political” in that private teams get public funding for stadiums, politicians show up to sporting events to engender support, the national anthem is played before most U.S. sporting events, and nationalism is the bedrock of international competitions like the Olympics.  The Olympics is so political that the International Olympic Committee had to pass a rule telling athletes not to be political in order to try to contain it. As Kavitha wrote for espnW and as we quote in the introduction to the book, pretending that sports are not political is actually the hard thing to do. The separation is what takes effort to uphold – and it’s mostly done by people whose right to exist in this space isn’t questioned.

Ms. Davidson: Yes. Full stop. Athletes have long recognized this – it’s not new for them to have platforms to express political messaging. The platforms are just bigger now, and more widely available; athletes are more amplified than ever before. But with that comes more embracing and more backlash from fans.

Q: How has COVID-19 affected sports? 

Ms. Luther: We can see how important the labor of athletes is to the running of teams and leagues. We can all see where the money goes and where it does not. We can all see which sports/teams/leagues/politicians take seriously the health of their athletes, staff, and the surrounding community and which do not. Any of these things could lead to change and I hope they do. I hope universities and the NCAA really have to reckon with the exploitation of athlete labor, that women’s sports get a bigger spotlight, that we rethink money in youth sports and college sports, and that we examine the relationship of sports to the wider communities in which they exist.

Ms. Davidson: The sport shutdown has demonstrated how much sports reflect what’s going on in the world. If, as Nationals pitcher Sean Doolittle said, sports are the reward for a functioning society, we haven’t quite gotten there yet. At the same time, I can’t fault any of my friends or family in New York for wanting sports back, after months of adhering to quarantine and mask mandates, to simulate some sense of normalcy. And if anything, the current state of the world – what we can and can’t have – highlights sports as something that we’ve taken for granted. 

Q: Can fandom change with our changing times? 

Ms. Luther: Yes, absolutely. There’s this tension with sports – it’s a made-up thing (how a game is played, what the rules are, what counts as cheating, etc.) and yet it feels like the version that exists in this exact moment has always been and will always be. But sports are always changing to make the games more exciting or more safe. And so fans change with it. We wrote this book, in part, to say to other fans like us, those who love sports but don’t feel loved back, that we are here and we are fans, too.

Ms. Davidson: I’d argue that the category of “sports fan” was always supposed to include people like me and Jessica – we just haven’t always been recognized. But yes, I think that there’s so much room for sports fandom to expand to include all of us. 

AP

Former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump

For some Americans, the 2020 presidential debates between incumbent Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden are an audition for two candidates who could become the oldest person to hold the Oval Office. For many others, however, age doesn’t seem to matter.

In August, a poll by The Economist/YouGov found 45% of voters said that an older president brings experience and wisdom to the job. That figure is nearly twice as high as those who said older age diminishes a person’s capacity to meet the demands of the presidency.

Among voters over 45, only 19% said age could be a liability for a president. During the Democratic primaries, younger voters ages 18 to 44 consistently favored Mr. Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders over candidates closer to their own ages.

After a long campaign that shattered so many political barriers – to ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation – lifting the prevailing stigma against age is equally significant. A new study by the University of Jyväskylä in Finland found that people between the ages of 75 and 80 today have shown measurably better physical and cognitive performance than people of the same ages 30 years ago. The study is one of only a few to collect and compare data from different historical times. Among its key discoveries is that lifelong learning, higher levels of work complexity, physical activity, and mentally stimulating forms of leisure can sustain cognitive acuity and bodily health.

“The results suggest that our understanding of older age is old-fashioned,” said Taina Rantenan, who led the research. The report concluded that “people can be productively employed much longer in professions that require strong reasoning skills.”

The Jyväskylä study supports previous academic work that found that having a purpose in life is “associated with positive health outcomes in older adults, including fewer chronic conditions, less disability, and reduced mortality,” as a 2018 UnitedHealth Group study concluded.

New insights linking mental and physical health to sustained mental and physical activity may help shift Western ideas about aging and the value of older adults closer to those shared in non-Western societies. Many African and rural Latin American cultures, for example, have no notion of retirement. People remain active well into their advanced years, sometimes out of necessity, while being socially revered. Indeed in much of the world, civic roles expand with age. Nelson Mandela wasn’t just the first Black president of South Africa. He was also the oldest.

“We know that as people age, they actually become wiser,” Dr. Gary Small, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, told CNN in a July interview about age and election. “They have more experience to solve problems. They have less anxiety. [As] you get older … you develop mental resilience, which is an important asset of an older person.”

In the U.S. Congress, a blending of the energy of youth and the wisdom of experience is enriching debates with intergenerational insights. In society at large, this blending is nurturing a deeper and wider empathy as Americans grapple with racial injustice.

Rather than judge political candidates by the number of trips around the sun, voters should take measure of their fresh perspectives and accumulated wisdom. Life lessons count more than life spans.