Godhelp America ...Trump isn’t done just yet!
THERE are very few images in modern politics which have the genuine ability to shock. The scenes in Washington DC on Wednesday night were a dreadful exception.
As someone who loves America, who chose to study part of their degree in American history, who has continued to be a close US political observer and has travelled to the capital and met with senators and staffers alike – seeing protesters storm the Capitol building left a profound sense of disbelief. I still have my ticket from sitting in the Senate gallery, watching proceedings – the same gallery stormed by flagwaving gunmen.
On the news, it looked like a bad movie. Or a coup attempt in a banana republic. It did not look like the sedate, precise, mannered chamber where most decisions are made in a quiet, orderly way.
Once the building was cleared, the city-wide curfew imposed, and as the glass was being swept up, Congress reconvened to get on with certifying Joe Biden’s election win. He’s going to have a tough job bringing America together after this week’s events.
I was due to interview Trump’s former spokesman, Anthony Scaramucci, or ‘the Mooch’, on Thursday for a charity podcast on LBC. The outspoken financier helped raise funds for Trump’s election bid and worked for his campaign before distinguishing himself as the shortest White House communications director on record – fired after 11 days for saying something to a journalist about colleagues that he believed was off the record. As a former Trump supporter, he could not have been more condemnatory about the events in DC, nor the President’s culpability in inciting them – calling not just for impeachment but for Trump to be jailed.
As someone who has known Trump for years, Scaramucci was scathing about what would come next. He claimed the President enjoyed inflicting pain, that he’d use his platform and status to keep Trumpism alive and that Republican outriders in the Senate and Congress would jockey for position to capture his base ahead of the 2024 elections. ‘This is not the last moment of horror from Donald Trump,’ he said.
That’s the big challenge facing Joe Biden. Not just that he inherits a bitterly divided America – the culture wars of recent years make it harder for centrists in the Democrat or Republican parties as there is an electoral penalty within each base for reaching a hand across the aisle and committing to bipartisan working.
Beyond that, Trump is the first US President in history to refuse to recognise his opponent’s win and the first in living memory who threatens to fight on. He would rather subvert democracy than admit to losing.
MOST retiring presidents, having been buffeted by the pressures of the job, are understanding of their successors and refrain from public interventions in live issues. Some, such as George W Bush and Barack Obama, forge a real friendship irrespective of party colours and use the institutional knowledge of one president to help advise and inform the next. You would get long odds on Donald Trump retiring gracefully, opening a presidential library and starting a charitable foundation similar to his predecessors. No, all evidence points to this President being forced from the stage but choosing to use the platform and microphone that the role afforded him to continue to create chaos.
With time on his hands, willing Congressional devotees, a mob of outraged supporters and a narrative of martyrdom, he threatens to destabilise any attempts by the incoming administration to steady the ship and restore order and dignity to the office.
Joe Biden will need every ounce of statecraft he can muster to steer America into clearer waters.