US | elections

four years ago i was pretty sure, hillary clinton would win the race for the US presidency. like many, if not most others i was mistaken.

a friend of mine commented that, after becoming president, trump would soon resign. why? because he had accomplished all, and because the job was too much work. during that discussion i mused about the republican party under trump: this president would dismantle the party completely.

all wrong.

i found the bush administrations highly dangerous because of the wars they invoked. dick cheney and donald rumsfeld were genuine criminals with a clear imperialist neocon ideology. what a huge relief came with the obama adminstration, not only because, with one exception, he tried to bring some peace to the world.

trump turned out to be totally incapable of handling basically anything. he tried, with some success, to ruin values created by previous administrations such as obama‘s healthcare. him ignoring the corona pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of „his“ citizens their life. at least, due to incompetence, he did not invoke wars. financial wars have always been his only expertise. he built his business imperium mainly by threatening other people and organisations. as a president he threatened states such as china and, well, michigan (“free michigan!“).

amazingly the republican party stands behind him. the members of congress and the senate had to swallow an enormous amount of hate to keep supporting trump. actually, they did not have to swallow this, but they did. if trump loses the 2020 election — and i think he will — the republicans will be troubled. not only when they look into the mirror and wonder where that dream of the past four years had vanished. they look paralysed.

joe biden is a weak competitor, but with his frail health and high age and his biography and psychological pain, he is the only competitor who deeply constrasts trump in all respects. biden as president will put together a team of probably very interesting people.

after the open minded and transparent obama administration, in hindsight it is clear why people were longing for someone quite different. but after four years of trump‘s longing for admiration it‘s time for some decency.

my versionoriginal photograph by alex wong/afp