The daunting reality as Biden inherits a ‘broken’ America
This week’s inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris was a classic American political moment — emotional, poignant and soaring with unbridled hope and promise.
Tears undoubtedly flowed in many American homes, and here in Canada as well. Also, surprisingly unrestrained, many world leaders matched that joy by expressing their own enthusiasm at the dawning of a new era.
Given this, is this week’s message to the world that the nightmare of Donald Trump’s presidency has ended and “America is back”?
No, not quite. Not yet. Life is never that simple.
We are now in the year 2021, not 2017. The world that greets President Biden as he takes office after four years of Trump’s disastrous presidency is a far more dangerous one than when he and Barack Obama were in power.
And Biden’s America — the one that he inherits from his predecessor — is far different, more divided and immeasurably weakened.
Although many of the global threats were apparent in 2017 when Trump took over, he made things far worse for the U.S. in virtually every area.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia — in spite of Trump’s still-unexplained obsequiousness toward him — is a more hostile rival. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has rebuffed Trump’s infatuation with him by expanding his nuclear threat. And America’s traditional allies in Europe and Asia have begun planning a future far less reliant on unpredictable U.S. leadership.
But it is the U.S. relationship with China that may likely shape the rest of this 21st century, and the prospects are daunting.
As the Trump term came to an end, his combative secretary of state Mike Pompeo applauded their tough handling of China: “The Trump Administration ended decades of appeasement and misguided engagement policy towards the Chinese Communist Party.”
But in fact, the Trump approach was mainly bellicose rhetoric. In an analysis of the U.S. government’s policy toward China by Bloomberg News — headlined “How China Won Trump’s Trade War and Got Americans to Foot the Bill” — the report revealed that the U.S. trade deficit with China is currently larger than it was in 2016.
The most common concern of many world leaders, bolstered by public polling, is that the United States — even led
by Biden — will not regain its global leadership until it gets its own house in order.
Beyond the widespread personal dislike of Trump in most western and Asian countries, there is mystification at how stunning the collapse has been of American institutions.
How could the fabled U.S. medical system result in more than 400,000 dead from the pandemic? How could incidents of racial injustice still be so widespread in the 21st century? And how could the hallowed halls of American democracy be so vulnerable to attack from domestic terrorists?
But even more perplexing: How could more than 70 million Americans still vote for the re-election of this man?
These are very good questions, and the answers are not easy to find.
A survey of Europeans released this week illustrates the challenge. A majority of respondents believe that the U.S. political system is “broken.” They believe that China will be the world’s leading power in a decade, and that Joe Biden won’t be able to halt U.S. decline internationally.
This comes from a survey of 15,000 people in 11 European countries conducted last month. Biden’s victory in the presidential election was widely welcomed, but after four years of Trump, most felt that the U.S. cannot be trusted.
The history has yet to be written of Donald Trump’s final days. But it will be — soon — and Americans will learn how direct was his assault on U.S. democracy in the past month and how close he came to destroying it.
Although Joe Biden reminded his country in his inaugural address that “democracy prevailed,” he could have easily added the words: “… but just barely.”
We should hope that this stark reality will motivate his future actions.
As Biden throughout his life has wrestled with America’s place in the world, he has joined other Americans in the past in defending democratic values abroad because it would strengthen U.S. democracy at home.
Trump’s past four years have proven that point.
His hostility toward American democracy itself has encouraged dictatorial leaders worldwide to follow his leadership and undermine the very institutions that protect human rights. And Trump, in turn, has done the same in his own country.
Since 2017 — with the United States no longer the ally, but the apparent enemy — there have been many embattled political leaders and civic organizations globally that have tried to fill the vacuum, but they now need support.
But as this new era begins, it is not the time for the conceit of “American exceptionalism” to return.
Instead, it is the moment for the United States — reflecting the newly deserved “humility” that Biden now champions — to work respectfully with others to undo the worldwide damage of the past four years.