{"id":65226,"date":"2020-12-29T01:06:17","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T01:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=65226"},"modified":"2020-12-29T01:11:09","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T01:11:09","slug":"trump-will-be-gone-but-trauma-of-2020-may-haunt-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/?p=65226","title":{"rendered":"Trump will be gone, but trauma of 2020 may haunt Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
\n

WASHINGTON, Dec 28, 2020 (BSS\/AFP) \u2013 Covid and a traumatic presidential election left the US reeling in 2020, but even with Donald Trump gone and Joe Biden promising to heal the nation there\u2019ll be no quick return to normal in 2021.<\/p>\n

For many in the world\u2019s richest country, 2020 was the year that seemed never-ending \u2014 an infinite series of horror movie sequels shaking the economy, politics and society itself.<\/p>\n

Biden, an old-school Washington politician who believes in traditional US diplomacy and what he refers to as \u201cdecency,\u201d got elected on a promise to stop the chaos.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is time to turn the page,\u201d he said earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The shift in mood at the White House after Inauguration Day on January 20 will be remarkable.<\/p>\n

Out goes the most attention-seeking president imaginable, and in comes a mild-mannered leader who says he seeks \u201cto lower the temperature.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Trump clearly has no intention of giving up the limelight \u2014 or allowing the United States to forget the nationalist and populist passions that his administration worked so hard to stoke.<\/p>\n

His extraordinary decision to deny that he lost the election, more than a month after it happened, is just part one in what he hopes will be yet another Trump-centered drama, possibly culminating with a new presidential run in 2024.<\/p>\n

And Biden will have another, tougher foe breathing down his neck: Covid-19.<\/p>\n

Even though vaccines are now coming online, the virus is at its most deadly, killing thousands of Americans a day. It\u2019s forecast to get even worse before winter is over.<\/p>\n

Trump has tried to take credit for the ultra-fast development of the vaccines \u2014 one of the few good news stories of 2020.<\/p>\n

But it will largely fall to Biden next year to oversee the unprecedented logistical task of getting doses administered across 50 states.<\/p>\n

And while Trump can blame the catastrophic disruption to the economy on the coronavirus, it will be Biden who finds himself being remembered for what happens during the hoped-for recovery in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2018Death Star\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n

With Trump running for a second term, perhaps it was always inevitable that 2020 was going to be a wild year.<\/p>\n

The rules-breaking Republican began his year with acquittal along party lines in a Senate impeachment trial.<\/p>\n

Emboldened, he then stormed out onto the reelection trail, holding rally after rally in front of large crowds.<\/p>\n

The Trump campaign machine was so well-funded and so single-minded that its then manager, Brad Parscale, likened it to the Death Star in \u201cStar Wars,\u201d a weapon ready to annihilate everything in its path.<\/p>\n

The Democrats, meanwhile, began the year eyeing a long, perilous primary season featuring a staggering two dozen candidates.<\/p>\n

Clearly, Trump fancied his chances.<\/p>\n

Unemployment was at rock bottom, the stock market at historic highs and in January Trump reached a truce \u2014 which he spun as a huge win \u2014 in his trade war with China.<\/p>\n

Yes, he was historically unpopular, but what made him reviled by the left, like his anti-immigrant rhetoric, won adoration on the right.<\/p>\n

He even joked to his crowds that he\u2019d not only win four more years but an unconstitutional extra eight, 12 or more.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Invisible enemy \u2013<\/p>\n

What no one knew in the first days of the year was that the Covid-19 virus, at first an unknown disease in faraway China, was about to upend the landscape.<\/p>\n

By the end of January, the Chinese city of Wuhan was under severe lockdown and Trump had stopped travel from China. Yet for months he and many others in the United States did not appear to understand or at least accept what was happening.<\/p>\n

Trump called Covid the \u201cinvisible enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was an unseen force which would kill more than 300,000 Americans by mid-December and wreck Trump\u2019s entire reelection message of success and strength.<\/p>\n

Biden, whose campaign rested heavily on his claim to be the safe pair of hands for a crisis-ridden America, will now face the monumental task of steering the country to recovery.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll do this with Trump sniping from the sidelines and an opposition Republican party which has moved far to the right over the last four years, embracing Trump\u2019s scorched earth brand.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s own party may also not prove an easy partner, with the Democrats\u2019 left wing in no mood to toe the line.<\/p>\n

Two runoff races in Georgia for the Senate on January 5 will decide who controls the upper house \u2014 and to a large extent how much room Biden will have to maneuver.<\/p>\n

Yet Biden, 78, has insisted he goes into this new era hopeful.<\/p>\n

As he said in August, accepting the Democratic nomination: \u201cHistory will be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Dec 28, 2020 (BSS\/AFP) \u2013 Covid and a traumatic presidential election left the US reeling in 2020, but even with Donald Trump gone and Joe Biden promising to heal the nation there\u2019ll be no quick return to normal in 2021. For many in the world\u2019s richest country, 2020 was the year that seemed never-ending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65227,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[249],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\t\n