Now that we have passed the end of “the year in which we live dangerously”, it is appropriate to take stock and to wonder about the prospects of the “new era”, once the defeat of Donald Trump confirmed constitutionally.
The new environment is dominated by an embarrassment which is presided over by a heavy patch of uncertainty. This feeling is caused by the enormity of the damage done by the Trump presidency. The only doubt that fills the environment is that of the permanence of the catastrophe caused by the four-year period which now ends.
Inserted in the context of the satisfaction of the cessation of the nightmare is the prediction of a certain nostalgia. It was based on the relatively well-established strategy of confrontation in the face of what has been called the formation of a dictatorship within the oldest democracies in documented history. We wondered what we would do when we woke up, obsessed with a diary filled with one “problem”.
Some of us feared that at the height of the expectation of the success of a confrontational strategy, they would remind us that, given the importance and the loneliness of questioning the irrational policies of the president, we would be unfairly accused. .
Unusually, we had an unwanted and at the same time crucial accomplice to get the uncomfortable tenant evicted from the White House.
We didn’t know how we could be grateful, so to speak, for the help of the pandemic that still plagues the planet. The President’s irrational behavior in the successive stages of the onset of Covid-19, its development, expansion, and establishment across the planet, had become Trump’s worst enemy and the country’s best ally opposition.
There was an indisputable feeling that the introduction of the virus and the resulting denial of Trump joined the efforts of the political opposition to achieve defenestration, albeit within the confines of his administration.
Every infected human, especially in the United States, and every certified death, counted by Trump’s erratic health policy, was recorded as “votes” in the Nov. 3 election tally.
The hope that Covid-19 would magically disappear one night, as Trump himself surreally predicted in early spring 2020, would represent the death of the formidable enemy that hovered over the White House.
Meanwhile, opposition to the president in apparent majority in the United States and in universal proportions abroad has devoted its efforts to an exclusively reactionary agenda to every contempt of the president. But the absence of a multiple strategy consisting of a program for “the next day” was noted.
In the Democratic camp, a plan for the future was missing. The discussion on the best candidate and his colleague on the “ticket” dragged on. This detail was not clarified until the decision in favor of Joe Biden and then with the addition of Kamala Harris as running mate.
In an environment reluctant to form ‘kitchen cabinets’, as has been the custom in the UK since time immemorial, it was noted that there was no government program to be implemented after 3 November.
In view of the poorly concealed feeling of insecurity, it was feared that one day people would exclaim with barely hidden nostalgia: “Against Trump, we lived better”.
This event finds its origin in the meditation that the Spanish Communist Party expressed during the reinstallation of democracy in Spain, after the disappearance of the Franco regime. Its precedent was the declaration made by the remnants of the regime: “With Franco, we lived better”.
The Communists, seeing that their reserved space was occupied by New Democrats, admitted that when they were in the underground opposition, they had more effective power than in parliamentary democracy.
Opposition to Trump could be forced to speak out in the same way once the system is fully opened at the end of January. He will have based all his conduct on criticism of any government “policy”. In reality, they were just whims expressed in the wee hours of the morning, clicking on their cell phones.
The monumental void left by Trump’s mismanagement will always be filled with attention to the proper application of the vaccine and proof of its excellence, a task that will last until the remainder of 2021.
It will depend on how effectively the new government’s urgent measures are implemented so that the electorate is not tempted to hear the siren songs of 2016 again.
Rebuilding the economy, reducing the damage to the most needy sectors, better integrating immigration and resolutely fighting to eradicate racism are some of the most pressing issues of the new government. Only a reasonable resolution will prevent some of the 70 million who voted for the outgoing president from being tempted to exclaim: “With Trump, we have lived better!”
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Translation by Maria Isabel Santos Lima