In 2016, we could always say that the United States did not go completely nuts – because Donald Trump did not win the popular vote for president. Most of the country voted against him again in 2020. But not this time. Trump won the popular vote as well as the electoral college. His second-term victory does not have an asterisk.
As we absorb what has happened, what decade does this feel like? It is beginning to look and feel like the 1930s. With this election, the postwar world is now over. The architecture established after World War II – the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, the World Health Organisation, international accords on climate change and the environment, and human rights bodies – are a shadow of their former stature. NATO will be under immense stress from Trump. We have authoritarian dictators invading countries to extend their raw power. Isolationism has gripped the superpower that has been the engine of democracy, the United States, and trade wars will be unleashed.
President-elect Donald Trump celebrates at the Palm Beach Convention Centre in Florida.Credit: Getty Images
Having worked on many Democratic campaigns, I can say the Democrats are left in complete shock and disarray. There are already recriminations, much of the blame laid – rightly – on Joe Biden for not stepping down at least a year earlier. “Donald Trump’s second term is Joe Biden’s real legacy,” reads the headline in The New Yorker.
Biden’s legacy is gone. Until this election, he was seen as one of the most successful presidents on domestic policy........