Donald Trump: Good riddance to bad rubbish

That people around the world will rejoice that America’s most poisonous President ever has left the White House is beyond doubt. Many too will hope that a Joe Biden, Kamala Harris Presidency can not only restore sanity and a sense of global order but also usher in a renewed and turbocharged drive for racial and social justice.

Even though Biden and Harris now have the key levers of democratic power to bring in sweeping changes - the Senate and Congress - the landscape in which they govern is one of a nation that is more divided than at any point since the civil war back in 1861.

Depressingly, the fault lines that helped trigger that war - deep racial inequality - are the same fault lines that have in many ways caused this present schism. As we await the inauguration of the next President, we have to ask ourselves how many of the 76 million Americans who voted for Trump are white nationalists? Even if less than 10% are, which still would be many millions, the vast majority would have been acutely aware that they were giving tacit support to a white supremacist in Donald Trump.

Worse still, whilst a petulant Trump has left the House, he will not bow out with any good grace, and will more likely engage and further incite his base to disrupt (and who knows whatever else) US society.

One can only hope that President Biden can turn the US COVID-19 nightmare around, and along with it, its economy, and in doing so win the trust of a sizable chunk of that poisoned base who voted for hate over hope.

But this is a fragile America with its global detractors rubbing their hands with glee. Still, many of us here just wish that this rather elderly white man and his vice President of African and Asian descent can make all Americans believe in decency and opportunity again.

Good luck Joe, good luck Kamala.

Simon Woolley

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A call to action...

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