Joe Biden has the weight of the world on his shoulders | Marilynne Robinson

The tasks before Biden are vast and the dangers great. He must hold steady and persevere

Joseph R Biden has the weight of the world on his shoulders. These words are as true of him as they have ever been of any mortal soul. Until his term ends, he will be alone with the gravest decisions that have ever confronted an American leader. Things might have gone very badly for Abraham Lincoln, but the varieties of loss and destruction now possible if the systems of order fail are great beyond imagining.

The design of our government poses one human being against all our troubles, however difficult or threatening. This is only truer now that this president has to deal with an opposition committed to seeing him fail - or be perceived as failing, which for most purposes is the same thing. Our champion in the present trial-by-history is a fine old man of truly vast experience who may or may not show signs of aging which may or may not reflect on his judgment and competence. I am a few days more than a year younger than Biden, so I am sensitive to the association of age with cognitive slippage and less inclined to credit it than the generality of people seem to be. Old as I am, I remember that the press ridiculed Eisenhower for supposedly being inarticulate. No doubt Biden remembers this as well.

Marilynne Robinson is an American novelist and essayist. Her latest book is Jack