This is America now. It is a country that sees its authentic self reflected most clearly in the figure of a sexual predator, a racist, a misogynist, a fraudster, a felon, a coup monger, an inveterate liar and a senescent spewer of increasingly deranged and vulgar nonsense. The world must now come to terms with the undeniable fact that the US has freely and fairly chosen to embody its values in a man it knows damn well to be all those things.

This is not like 2016, when Donald Trump lost the popular vote but won the presidency because of the way a relative handful of votes fell in a small number of swing states. It is not even like the four years that followed when all the signs were that Trump was historically unpopular.

Back then, it was possible to say that many Americans voted for Trump without really having a clear idea of how he would govern, that many others imagined that he would be safely controlled by responsible adults and that, after all, most Americans didn’t vote for him. It was possible to think that, however grim his tenure might be, it would be a passing phase, a temporary derangement.

There is nothing temporary in the meaning of Trump’s comprehensive victory over Kamala Harris. The widely touted belief that this was a pivotal election in US history was not overblown. That history has taken a turn, not just because of Trump himself but because of the new majority that either embraces his fascistic rhetoric or is at the very least not........

© The Irish Times