With no end in sight to the federal government shutdown and uncertainty abroad, former President Joe Biden on Sunday said he still believes in the promise of the nation.
“When I was president, I said the most urgent question facing the country is whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause. I think the answer is yes,” Biden, 82, said as he picked up a lifetime achievement award from the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Dorchester.
“I don’t believe it could ever be anything other than that,” Biden said, according to a statement issued after his remarks to a crowd of some 600 people who gathered at the institute’s Columbia Point headquarters to hear him speak. “It can never be no.’”
Biden, a Delaware Democrat who served for years alongside Kennedy, D-Mass., when both men were in the U.S. Senate, told the crowd that “America is not a fairy tale.”
“For 250 years, it’s been a constant push and pull. An existential struggle between peril and possibility,” he continued. “Perhaps it’s the unwavering optimism of my friend Teddy that causes me to say I believe that the America of our dreams is always closer than we think.”
Biden, who left office last year after dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, praised Kennedy, who died in 2009, aged 77, for his optimism and his belief that “our issues were all about making life better for people, for all Americans.”
“By assuring they had access to a good job, decent health care, which Teddy called the cause of his life,” Biden said, according to the statement. “Teddy believed in the power of our democracy to pull our nation through the worst of moments.”
The award to Biden came as the institute on Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester celebrated its 10th anniversary. Former Boston Mayor Martin Walsh and retired U.S. Navy Admiral Lisa Franchetti were also expected to be honored.
Former U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who served as secretary of state during Biden’s tenure as vice president, was to serve as an honorary chairperson of the event, WCVB-TV in Boston reported.
The institute, founded in 2015 at the behest of Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, is “the leading voice for bipartisanship in the United States,” its board chairman, Bruce A. Percelay, said, according to the statement.
“The Edward M. Kennedy Institute is more relevant today than it has ever been, and at a time when it is needed most,” Percelay told guests.
“You cannot find common ground in a vacuum, you cannot find common ground in an echo chamber, and our strategy of bringing the right and left together is achieving tangible results,” he continued.
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“Ted Kennedy said what unites us is far more powerful than what divides us, and your support of his vision is an investment not only in this incredible institute but in democracy itself,” he said.
The institute frequently hosts high-profile speakers from across party lines in its efforts to further a more civil national dialogue.
That includes former Republican Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke earlier this month on the need for civility in government.
Biden’s appearance in Boston comes after the 82-year-old completed a round of radiation treatment for prostate cancer, CBS News reported.
The news is encouraging, but does not signal the end of Biden’s treatment, the network reported.
Biden won the White House in 2020, defeating President Donald Trump. He abandoned his 2024 reelection bid under pressure from his fellow Democrats, throwing his backing to former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump, a Republican, defeated Harris last November, winning a second term and recapturing the White House.
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