Well bollocks. I went to bed and it didn’t look good, but was thinking you never know… then I woke up and Trump is confirmed.
Harris didn’t get enough people out to vote. Her campaign may have missed the mark in trying to broaden the tent and include the likes of Cheney. I could sort of understand it, as she really did want to govern in good faith, reaching across the aisle wherever possible. However, it appears this tactic didn’t mobilize enough of her base.
I think down the line, the likes of AOC need to come to the fore for the Democrats. Proper progressives who can make their case for a fairer country. I think it will mobilize the masses in a way that Harris did not, after another rather unfortunate Trump term, which we must now endure.
On a personal note, my gay daughter is distraught. She drove home 250 miles to vote in her first election, and I was proud of her. We live in a red state and I expected it to fall for Trump, and it did, but we were hoping Harris would win the election and the page would indeed turn over and leave Trump behind us.
The uncomfortable truth is that many, many millions of Americans chose him. He is the candidate they wanted. I am rather stunned by that, as what he will bring is an appalling agenda. The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. Health, climate, education, foreign policy… anywhere you want to look has a great chance of getting worse. Possibly much worse.
One thing that goes up in smoke in all this is the rule of law. America sort of prides itself on its history - throwing off the old world, with an unaccountable king trying to rule them (there’s much more to the story, but this is the simple version in the American psyche).
Anyhow, it has come full circle and they just elected their own unaccountable king.
“In America no one is above the law.” That’s what the judge said in a lovely ceremony when I, along with a few dozen others from numerous nations around the world, became a citizen.
She was quite wrong. Trump is above the law. In many ways this is small beer compared to the agenda he will likely enact when he becomes President again. But his significant legal jeopardy, on numerous counts, is all going to get waved away.
Ugh. I’m sad for Ukraine. Trump will probably help to stop the war, and he will claim a victory, but half of Ukraine will be gone, and the aggressor, Putin, will be emboldened for further expansion, once they take a few years to re-arm and regroup.
NATO will be undermined and the UK won’t do well from this either, as Trump’s America is not a true friend, more a transactional relationship… and without the might of the EU bloc, the UK will just get crumbs from the table in trade and so on. Get back in the EU! Make up and mend fences.
People of Trump’s ilk around the world will be emboldened, and there will be more leaders like him coming to the fore.
History moves in cycles, so it won’t last forever. But this is bad news to wake up to today though. Ugh.
