The era of the wild, wild West may have been over long ago, but another begins Monday in Washington when Donald Trump starts his second term that will bookend one by an aging president who meant well but failed in a battle of perception over age and declining mental acuity. The day he fumbled the debate lent the decisive twist that led to a historic split term for his predecessor whose ascent is causing waves globally that threaten to prove unstoppable like the Los Angeles wildfires.
Joe Biden took over in the most difficult of times as the Covid pandemic was spreading globally and was to cripple the global economy that was shut down bowing to advice that seemed logical enough when the pathogen was rampant. The US suffered more than many other countries and as Biden’s Democrats opened the coffers and vaccinated the nation, no one objected except the Republicans and vaccine sceptics.
The divisiveness caused by Mr Trump’s claims of a stolen 2020 election, however, split the nation irretrievably into two different halves that may never meet on a common plane again even if they did briefly work together to make the Israel-Gaza ceasefire deal possible. It is the erosion of politics that may tell on the power of democratic institutions. As divisions persist, even Mr Biden’s good moves may never be truly acknowledged.
History might struggle to be kind to Mr Biden not because of his image of a faltering senior but due to the many missteps he took, including in clinging to the fight for the President’s chair when he could so easily have admitted a decline and paved the way for a more democratic way of choosing the party candidate to oppose Mr Trump. And yet he was the one who pulled USA out of its long war in Afghanistan, but in such a messy way as to make the withdrawal seem like a total failure.
Inflation, not enough money in the hands of those who needed it more and unflinching support for Israel in the Gaza war and the rising immigration problem were the factors that brought Mr Biden down in the eyes of America. Not even the fact that the worst attack on democracy in an insurrection aimed by Republicans at Capitol Hill helped Mr Biden’s political image for securing the country against such a challenge. Mr Biden’s unwanted legacy may be the resurrection of Mr Trump.
In his farewell speech, Mr Biden warned America of an oligarchy of billionaires taking the reins on behalf of his successor who he has termed a fascist. If the fear is real of a band of 13 super rich tech czars taking over, the Democrats should also think over how they may have also been guilty of allowing some super rich suited to their disposition wielding undue influence. They paid the price for the wokeism they supported, their grandstanding on human rights and their embracing of immigrants.
As Mr Trump steps in, the anxieties of the world will be more about the trade wars he may engender with planned retaliatory tariffs and his shredding of US foreign policy that acknowledged the freedoms of fellow democracies. A transactional real estate mogul who turned politician for a lark may reset all ties that the free world may have held dear. Maybe, his ideas of ending wars may prove the exception in an otherwise seemingly destructive agenda, thick with imperialist territorial ambitions, and put him in line for the Nobel Peace Prize.
