As I am writing this TV news has just declared a definitive Biden victory. So, as Trump departs with his incoherent and incompetent leadership, I am hopeful! My faith in good sense of American people and in American democracy is reaffirmed.
Yes, we don’t have much talked about Blue Wave that I had hoped and predicted. So, we will have a divided government for at least for next two years. Is that too bad? Republican controlled senate will push back on an aggressive, left leaning agenda starting with cabinet appointments. Chances of Elizabeth Warren for Treasury and Bernie Sanders for Labor are substantially diminished, if not eliminated. Imposition of any large tax burden on the rich as well as on large corporations looks unlikely. This has already eased the markets as all indices have risen since the election day.
Chances are McConnell and Biden, two old senate friends, are likely to work together better than had been the case when Obama was president. Washington is likely to work better in an old fashioned horse trading way and come up with a moderate legislative agenda on critical issues such as pandemic relief, economic stimulus and infrastructure. I doubt whether there will be any more silliness of shutting down the government and of not raising the debt ceiling.
With this hopeful note, I do not want to minimize the fundamental fact that the country is bitterly divided. Trump might be gone but Trumpism is likely to stay here for a foreseeable future. Approximately 5 million more people voted for Trump in 2020 than four years ago. Indeed, half of the country still voted for an amateurish and morally depraved President who has done incalculable damage at home and abroad. Further, we still have a profound existential issue of climate change that must be addressed. Will we be able to do that with this level of distrust and division? Further, we still have a raging pandemic that costs more than a thousand American lives each day. I am hopeful that at least under Joe Biden we will begin to address these issues.
