Ray Charles was right about Sweet Georgia on my mind. Thank heaven that Georgia voted in two democrats to the Senate. On a day where Donald Trump incited a mob to storm the US Capitol, resulting in turmoil, four deaths and disruption of the parliamentary process to confirm the election results, all is not black.
The combined houses of Congress did resume its work and did confirm the new president and vice-president in an all-night session. Democracy has prevailed but only by the skin of its teeth. The risks it faces still linger as long as Trump and his rebellious followers are not punished for the attempted coup we all witnessed on Wednesday.
It will be up to Joe Biden after January to seek healing.
After January 20, not only will the world be getting rid of Trump but it will also see the beginning of a new era of wealth distribution, social security, fair immigration laws, justice for the oppressed coloured population of a country built on 200 years of slavery and white privilege.
The tipping of the Senate in favour of the Democratic Party, added to the Biden victory in the presidential election and the retention of the majority in the House of Representatives, herald a new era. Europe should rejoice to see the US move away from isolation ‘America First’ policies of mad Trump. Results such as the US rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, the Iran nuclear deal and the WHO as well as the reopening of EU-US trade talks leading to a transatlantic market place are expected.
The internal changes within the US will include gun control, fairer taxation, curbing the dominance of the internet-based business monopolies of the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon and others, as well as moving towards free healthcare for all, reduction of education costs and reform of the police, the election system and large investments in the creaking infrastructure.
Is Trump going to accept this? Probably not. There is nothing worse in this world than a sore loser and Trump has shown that he was only a bag full of hot air and a fraud who believed in or was misled to believe in autocracy. He will be shown the door.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, has asked him not to visit Scotland. New York and Florida do not want him. His debtors will be asking for repayment of the $400 million he owes them. To do so he has to sell his hotels and golf courses but nobody seems to want them.
What will happen to Trump is not really of any interest to any of us. He is yesterday’s news. Yet, a good part of the Republican Party still believes in the ideas Trump represented. It is this development that we should watch out for in the next two years. If the two phalanxes of the Republican Party can regroup and consolidate the party they may have a chance at the next mid-term elections in two years.
However, the chasm separating the globalist outward looking orthodox Republicans from the isolationist, conspiracy-theory-driven, inward-looking clique of the party that brought about Trumpism cannot be bridged so easily. Trump himself cannot be the answer and there seems to be no other person able to take over leadership that will unify the party.
Democracy in the US has prevailed but only by the skin of its teeth- John Vassallo
On the other hand, life is not so uniform or coordinated on the Democratic side of the political spectrum in the US either. The Democrats are divided amongst themselves. There is the left wing of the party led by Bernie Sanders looking for earth-shaking changes to the American system which the large middle-income suburban residents are still afraid of. And there are the moderate, centrist, business-friendly Democrats who only want slow and careful changes to the system in America. The key to determine which of these two sections of the Democratic Party will win lies in the hands of the 85 million American youths aged 16 to 35.
The global battle of the 21st century will not be about natural resources, territorial gains, innovation and outer space colonisation. It will be all about which social system will govern the global population. Will it be the Chinese/Russian autocratic system, the US raw capitalist system or the European humanistic social equality system?
As a European, my choice is clearly the third one. Not only is it more democratic and fair that, through fair taxation, wealth that is created should be shared and spent in such a way that nobody is left behind in education, health, voting rights, security before the law and equal treatment.
Neither of the other two has these qualities. They may have some of them but in Biden’s new US lies hope that the younger generation will push the government to adopt many more European-like policies in the fields of education, social security, taxation, healthcare, environment, trade and foreign policy in the next couple of years so that a rapprochement of the EU and the US will be much closer than it has ever been.
If and when these two economies join up and bring their laws closer to each other’s the better the chances of persuading China, Russia, India, and Brazil to come in line grow. Then, and only then, can we really hope that planet earth becomes one home for all of us.
There will always be stragglers in breach of the rule of law or of social justice, human rights and freedom of expression and state subsidies but if the combined economic weight of the US, the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea is brought to bear, forcing those in breach to fall in line, we may potentially improve the lot of all world citizens over a period of 50 years. This is a target that the end of Trump brings closer to reality.
John Vassallo is a former ambassador to the EU.