Now it is time to heal America
FOUR years ago, Donald Trump stood no more than 100 yards in front of me as he began painting a grim picture of America. Just moments after being sworn in as president, he portrayed the US as a country under attack, losing its global influence and sense of worth, while saying its cities had been reduced to “carnage”.
It was an image of the nation that millions failed to recognise.
Under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, the US economy was soaring, never before had so many been provided vital affordable health care and employment rates hit new highs.
Yesterday, when Joe Biden stood on the Capitol to be sworn in as the 46th President, he inherited a country that resembled Trump’s dystopian vision much more closely than it did back then.
Having had a front-row seat for many of Trump’s troublesome events, it is no wonder America is a country paralysed by the virus and division.
Whether it was caging children taken from their migrant parents, calling Far-Right killers “very fine people”, backing Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies, calling countries “s***holes” or calling his own troops “suckers” and “losers”, the list goes on and on.
During Trump’s time in the White House, America was pushed to the brink of war, both at home and abroad, while countless US cities were torn apart by civil unrest as communities were pitted against each other.
Never once did Trump show the required leadership. Nowhere was this more evident that in his handling of his country’s Covid pandemic which he repeatedly called a hoax.
His time as US leader was focused on how the White House could further himself and his family, not the American people.
But a president’s most valuable commodity is time and, thankfully for much of America, and the rest of the world, Trump is now out of it.
As he today suns himself at his Florida mansion, he remains bitterly consumed with grievance over the election, still deluded that he actually won the election he lost.
For Biden though, now is the time for him to concentrate on healing his nation with diplomacy and a moderate approach.
He will inherit the gravest national crisis faced by any new president in the past 75 years, as he vows to bring Americans together, promising to look to the country’s past to shape the future he seeks to provide.
In doing so, he has invoked the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt who led America out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Typically, the start of a presidential administration is filled with expectation, with new staff eager to make a change.
But the atmosphere won’t be quite so intoxicating this time.
Biden’s number one priority is to tackle the crippling Covid pandemic that is running rampant throughout America.
Tens of millions of people remain out of work, and many children have not yet returned to the classroom.
But there is a less obvious, yet perhaps more daunting challenge he faces, and that is rebuilding the US government after four years of Trump.
Biden’s decades of experience in the Capitol make him uniquely qualified to lead the reconstruction project and he must follow through on his campaign slogan of “build back better”.
But from a global perspective, the new president must rejoin the world – firstly by putting America back in the Paris Climate Agreement and then the Iran nuclear deal.
The two moves begin the most complex reconstruction job he faces – repairing America’s image abroad and uniting like-minded countries to work together to solve everyday challenges.
Trump’s hostility to multilateral organisations and his disdain for traditional alliances have left the US more isolated and less influential than it has been in decades.
But even among America’s friends, any assurances from
Biden will be treated with wariness, after the volatility of the Trump years.
If America is going to get itself out of its mess, it’s going to need to ask for help, and Britain has already been earmarked by Biden as one of the most important countries to offer assistance.
Learning to accept America is no longer the power it was is surely the first step toward its recovery.