If you are of a certain age, it is said that you can remember where you were when you learned that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. (Me, I believe I was boarding a bus in Dundee’s City Square. A number 22, I think.)

Now we have a new question. What was your instant reaction when you learned that Donald J. Trump had been re-elected President of the United States?

Was it jubilation, echoing the raucous cries of triumph from his more strident, cap-waving idolators? Was it despair, as etched on the despondent Democrat faces?

Or was it perhaps apprehension? What might happen to civil rights? What might happen to the global economy?

Will President Trump seek to Make America Great Again by instigating a tariff-driven trade war? What about the Middle East? Ukraine?

Mr Trump airily dismisses such doubts. Nay-sayers. Doom-mongers. Fake news. A “golden age” awaits. He plainly plans to govern, at least in the initial phase, with the totemic simplicity of approach which won him the presidency.

While Kamala Harris struggled to detach herself from the record in office she shared with Joe Biden, her opponent kept it basic, as only he can.

In essence, he said: she broke America, I’ll fix it. He told voters: you’re hurting, I’ll sort it. It could not have been more elemental. He promised folk they’d be able again to afford groceries and gas. They bought it.

So why the apprehension? For one thing, he is a convicted felon, a new departure for the States where leaders commonly face condemnation from their opponents, rather than the law courts.
For another, his own statements. His attitude to women. His views on migrants. His........

© Herald Scotland