The recent political turmoil that engulfed the US has been a long time coming. For the close followers of the US politics, it is perhaps easy to even opine that the chickens have, in a way, come home to roost.
The past four years of President Donald Trump in office has been sheer hell – orchestrated and instigated by bad losers Democrats, who’ve never stopped casting aspersions over the legitimacy of the Trump administration. Republicans know too well the hurt of the lies perpetuated against President Trump since day one of his presidency, throughout which the Democrats have painted Trump as a tool of the Russians.
President Trump’s remarkable electoral victory was painted as the outcome of the nefarious activities of – you guessed correctly – the Russians interfering with the domestic electoral processes of the US. One Inquiry after the other, including court cases, could find no evidence that President Trump was “planted” by the Russians in the White House. But Democratic House Speaker and company would continuously have none of it. They even went as far as invoking the 25th Amendment, under which a sitting president could be impeached, and this too failed to oust Trump.
However, due to relentless weaving of his office to Moscow, President Trump ended up passing a flurry of anti-Russian measures as if to prove that he was not a Russian stooge.
The above scenario is, in a nutshell, a microcosm of the deep-seated dislike, nay, hatred, of the proponents and followers of America’s two-party political system that has been characterised by the interchange of office between the Democrats and Republicans.
For the past four years the Republicans’ stay in office has been made a living hell by the Democrats and their constant shenanigans. And now that the tables have turned, with President Trump leading the Republicans’ cry of stolen election, some of the mainstream media notably led by the anti-Trump network CNN are playing a game of “oh we can’t believe it”.
But they have to believe it. The US political system is polarised beyond description. The aura of pretense that America is a beacon of democracy belies the simple truth that Americans are human too. Like the rest of humanity they hurt, they cry, they rejoice and yes, they plot against each other.
Uphill battle ahead
President Trump will not willy-nilly congratulate President-elect Joe Biden on a victory the Republicans consider “stolen”. The next four years of the Biden administration, which comes into effect on January 20, 2021, will be more hellish that the grief the Democrats dished out to President Trump’s administration.
Where America is today is the consequence of human nature. Thousands of Trump supporters storming Capitol Hill might be a rare sight, but certainly not too far from human imagination.
Biden’s recent electoral victory was narrow in whichever way one looks at it. Half of the electorate cast their votes for President Trump and they are highly unlikely to abandon their disdain for the incoming Joe Biden and his hordes of Democratic diehards.
And so the polarisation not only continues, but it gets worse. The Trump supporters, no doubt spurred on by a man the Democrats wish they can make disappear, will take to the streets with the likelihood of violent protests, damage to property and loss of life.
I can’t imagine how the incoming President Biden will focus on international relations when domestically there is a rising evidence of possible local terror activities.
America’s cantankerous foreign policy under President Trump is unlikely to be tweaked markedly. Yes, the world can expect to see reduced levels of unilateralism under the guise of “Make America Great Again”. Already the democrats have undertaken to fix every sphere of public policy perceived to have been broken by the outgoing President Trump.
But that’ll be it. Four years is too short a time to develop legislation and implement it to a point of mass satisfaction. Before the Biden administration knows it, a new round of elections will be back. Like the one just past, it will be mired in allegations and counter-allegations of voter fraud and general rigging of the polls.
Gone are the days when the mighty America was a shining example of democracy to the world. Now we know, we can see, Americans too are human, and they possess the frailties noticeable in every human society.
The fallacy and manifestation of the aura of supernatural is all gone.
Welcome to the real world, America. Invincible no more. Hopefully, the world would henceforth stop confusing dignity with pomposity.
