Inauguration Day

Welcome Joe Biden. 

First of all, anything or anyone would be better than “The Donald.” Having said that, I don’t think Mr Biden is a good replacement. He is a good man. Of that I have no doubt. He understands the workings of government in the United States of America. He understands this at Congressional level and from the point of view of the White House. Barack Obama used him as an integral part of his team not as a vague reminder of his mortality.

But put bluntly he is too old. At almost 80 he is significantly older even than Pope Francis was on taking office and the Catholic Church is a deliberate gerontocracy. 

The physical demands of running a country – and in that time of plague are fearsome. The mental pressure of watching so many of your fellow citizens dying from COVID are beyond comprehension. These stresses will almost certainly mean that he has only one term as President. And he is too old to thrive in the late years of life already battered by personal tragedy. He has not recovered from the death of his son Beau, taken by cancer just five years ago. Had he been emotionally ready he could have followed Obama as a candidate four years ago and would have almost certainly defeated Trump. America would be a very different place as some people voted for Trump simply because they hated Hillary Clinton.

It is, incidentally, a worrying mark of Democratic politics that four years on Joe is still the future despite being so well advanced into his Twilight years.

He has to be that rather worrying character, “An Old Man in a Hurry”. 

He has COVID to defeat, he has an Economy to stabilise, he has a Healthcare system to secure and he has a Society to heal. It is a task that in my lifetime only once has anyone got anywhere near succeeding, Nelson Mandela and that’s still very much a work in progress with at least a couple of generations before it’s settled or ends in tears.

Because we watch American TV and we speak the same language we often fall into the error of thinking that we and the Americans are alike. We are not. Even if we understand the mechanics of American politics, we don’t understand the American psyche. Despite the attempts of British politicians to mimic American flag worship we are a totally different people with a totally different mindset. 

For half of the people in America today is the end of a four-year nightmare. They have been watching their country drift towards a state of mind where racism and sexism and xenophobia are the norms, and they hate what they see. For about 1/5 of the Americans, the liberal Republicans, who want low taxes and high stock market prices they may have voted for Trump originally because they hated Hillary and this time while holding their noses because they fear Biden the Marxist. 

And then there are “The Deplorables” (a term Steve Bannon and his crew use with pride). These are the people who believe the stories they hear on the wacky Internet radio stations, who take Fox News to be a balanced TV channel, who love guns and free speech who hate Black and Hispanic people and who despise Abortion, Affordable Healthcare and Homosexuality. I fear about 1/3 of the United States of America population has been radicalised, not just by Trump – he’s just the megaphone – but by the Super rich backers and supporters who manipulate news media and spent billions on supporting candidates in elections. Can a frail old man taking on a task, that would stretch the brightest and strongest of young men or women to the limit, succeed in unifying the moderate majority and suppressing the radicalised minority. A minority that is wound up and armed to the teeth. It is vital that he does this and if he fails and Trump or a successor to Trump wins the election in four years it could well be the end of American democracy because those who have tasted power with Trump and had it snatched away will, if they win again, not allow themselves to be side-lined a second time. 

1/3 of a country’s population fanatically committed to a particular cult is enough to take over that country. Remember Lenin and the Bolsheviks did it with many less. In the face of evil most of us keep our heads down and hope for the best. It’s that playing out of the Acton-ism about the triumph of evil. 

The best that can happen is the Biden beats the plague, the economy does well, and people like him. Then he can hand on to Kamala in four years by which time a whole new generation of liberal politicians, Democrats and Republicans, will be doing proper Liberal Democratic politics and the populist emergency will be over. The Deplorables will be pushed back into the long grass and continue to lurk harmlessly.

The worst will be that Trump or another Trump Like Megaphone comes to the fore as Joe is overwhelmed by issues and rapidly declining health. Blacks and Latinos will be put back in their place and voting will be restricted to appropriate people. Super rich backers American and Russian won’t want to see another failure.

It is clear that there is a set of very strong Democratic institutions in the United States. However, one aberrant presidency has demonstrated just how fragile is the balance that determines the contrast between stability and chaos. It has more or less held for a quarter of a Millennium. I hope that this is the fullest extent to which it will be stretched and not collapse. I think the next few years will be very testing and the outcome is by no means certain.