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      in US Politics

      Boris Johnson phones to congratulate Joe Biden and discuss 'close' relationship

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      Boris Johnson has spoken to Joe Biden to congratulate him on his victory over Donald Trump and allay fears Brexit could damage the Northern Ireland peace process, as world leaders lined up to speak to the US president-elect.Johnson was the second world leader to reveal he had spoken to Biden, after the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, did so on Monday. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, French president, Emmanuel Macron, and Irish taoiseach, Micheál Martin, said they had also received a call on Tuesday.“I just spoke Joe Biden to congratulate him on his election. I look forward to strengthening the partnership between our countries and to working with him on our shared priorities – from tackling climate change, to promoting democracy and building back better from the pandemic,” Johnson tweeted.Johnson and Biden are understood to have spoken for around 25 minutes from 4pm on Tuesday in a wide-ranging conversation on trade, Nato and democracy.Biden’s transition team said he thanked the prime minister for his congratulations and expressed his desire to “strengthen the special relationship” and “reaffirmed his support for the Good Friday agreement”.Downing Street said Johnson “warmly congratulated” Biden on his victory and “conveyed his congratulations to vice-president-elect Kamala Harris on her historic achievement”, but the official account did not specifically mention Brexit. However, a No 10 source said: “They talked about the importance of implementing Brexit in such a way that upholds the Good Friday agreement, and the PM assured the president-elect that would be the case.”Biden, who has Irish ancestry, has criticised Johnson’s intention to renege on parts of the EU withdrawal agreement in new Brexit legislation, and said that a US-UK trade deal was contingent on upholding the Good Friday agreement.Theresa May was 10th in line when Trump was elected in November 2016, after Ireland, Turkey, India, Japan, Mexico, Egypt, Israel, Australia and South Korea. Trump told May casually that “if you travel to the US you should let me know” – far short of an official invitation.Downing Street said the president-elect had been invited to attend the Cop26 climate crisis summit the UK was hosting in Glasgow next year, and the G7 Summit, also being hosted by the UK next year.Johnson and Biden have never met, although Biden allies have been disparaging about the prime minister. They include a former aide to Barack Obama, who said Democrats had not forgotten about Johnson’s suggestion the “part-Kenyan” former president held an “ancestral dislike of the British empire”.However, Downing Street has emphasised that the two leaders have much in common, in particular a commitment to tackling the climate emergency, which was not shared with the Trump administration.Over the weekend, Johnson said there was “far more that unites the government of this country and government in Washington any time, any stage, than divides us”. He added: “I think now, with president Biden in the White House in Washington, we have the real prospect of American global leadership in tackling climate change. And the UK, as you know, was the first major country to set out that objective of net zero by 2050.“We led the way a few years ago. And we’re really hopeful now that president Biden will follow and will help us to deliver a really good outcome of the Cop26 summit next year in Glasgow.”Senator Chris Coons, a close friend and ally of the president-elect, said he hoped Biden would look beyond the caricature of the UK prime minister. “In my meetings with the prime minister, he’s struck me as someone who is more agile, engaging, educated and forward-looking than perhaps the caricature of him in the American press would have suggested,” he said. “I found an engaging person to meet with and speak to and it’s my hope that president-elect Biden will have a similar experience.”The UK foreign office permanent secretary, Sir Philip Barton, rejected claims that Britain was trying to have it both ways by congratulating Biden but saying that some processes were “still playing out” in the US, a reference to Trump’s refusal to accept the election result.The Labour MP Chris Bryant, a member of the committee, accused Barton of relying on inertia and presiding over a half-hearted and incompetent congratulation. He said he did not see any of the necessary flair coming from the Foreign Office to build the personal relationships on which successful diplomacy rested.PA Media contributed to this report More

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      in World Politics

      America’s Moment of National Reckoning

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      America has just concluded a cataclysmic Election Day and its immediate aftermath. What was supposed to be our quadrennial celebration of democratic institutions is instead a reflection of what happens when unprincipled and corrupt leaders are given access to the national stage to promote disorder, distrust and chaos. It seems likely that the outcome of the vote will be finalized in the days ahead and that Joe Biden will have won the election. But until Trump is chained in his White House bunker without public access, the peaceful transfer of power remains at risk.

      Add to the equation that there is a deep sense among progressive activists, people of color, the underprivileged and the under-represented that over 71.5 million votes for Trump was a direct repudiation of their demands for a dynamic push forward for social, economic and racial justice in America. And this doesn’t even get to the immediacy of confronting a rampaging pandemic at home and an abundance of global challenges.

      360° Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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      Amid the chaos, let me be clear that I hope an armed confrontation can be avoided and that there will be enough leadership and institutional integrity to force an orderly transfer of power. However, the election results make clear that many more people voted for Trump this time than last time. Targeted right-wing messaging works, and there is no apparent antidote. Those 71.5 million votes for Trump are a terrible outcome for a nation at war with itself and in which only the right-wingers have the guns.

      As Biden’s victory sets in, there will be those who cheered on Trump and his toxic message who will not rest until they try to blow something up along with the country itself. As that unfolds, there is likely to be the first foundational test of America’s political and military institutions since the Civil War. I am not sure those institutions will hold. It is certainly not clear that those institutions can ensure a peaceful transfer of power.

      Healing the Nation

      At some point, something will have to give. At that point, a crippled America will harvest the rancid fruit of decades of delusion about how “exceptional” the nation was as it grew intellectually lazy, willed its future to greedy and corrupt capitalists, and utterly failed to invest in a sustainable system of governance that could meet the challenges of an evolving world. Picking up the pieces will not be easy.

      The 50-state solution so beloved by those wallowing in the 19th century simply must be discarded, and some new foundation for national governance must be designed and implemented. Unfortunately, with the coronavirus pandemic ripping its way through the populace and a court system packed with those 19th-century wannabes, the time for wishful thinking will have to wait. The 50-state solution will have to be urgently junked to address the pandemic with a national plan and national mandates. Maybe afterward, America can study the results of the coordinated national response and find the way to a new, vibrant, 21st-century federal system.

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      Meanwhile, there will be an enormous amount of focus on how America got to this point, but I want to get out front that years of “false equivalency” disguised as “balance” or “fairness” has poisoned the nation’s well of fact-based knowledge from which any democratic nation would hope that its citizens could draw. Much has been said about willful ignorance, but not enough about the fountains of falsehoods that feed those unwilling to learn much of anything that requires factual focus. Repetition of belief is no substitute for acquisition of knowledge.

      The impending national convulsion has just begun. A reckoning with collective ignorance and the arrogance of ignorance is essential as the starting point for a meaningful national dialog about how America so completely lost its way. The responsible mainstream media and social media outlets have to stop honoring falsehood with repetition and that most ludicrous of questions — “What’s your response?” And to try to rebuild lost credibility, real and transparent sourcing of news reporting has to again become the rule.

      Then, if government institutions are to be resurrected and strengthened, there must be some measure of accountability for those who worked so diligently to undermine governance, often to enhance their own wealth and power. Today’s list of the corrupt is really long. Trump is a sick symptom, a tool used by so many others to achieve corrupt ends. But he is also symbolic of so much of what is so wrong that his accountability is an essential component of any national reckoning.

      It is important that Trump be charged with the crimes he has committed both in office and in his corrupt life that led to his election in the first place in 2016. It is equally important that those in his inner circle, including his family, his enabling aides, his attorney general and his secretary of state, all find themselves under criminal investigative scrutiny.

      This will surely further divide the nation. But it will be impossible to begin the healing if there is no accountability for the intentional wrongdoing that has led to so much suffering and dysfunction. Those who corruptly profited from the past should have to pay in the present if there is to be a future with the rule of law restored to its proper place in the national pantheon of virtues.

      Joe Biden’s Inauguration

      However, the critical first task ahead is to ensure Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021. Unfortunately, that date is over 10 weeks away. Ten weeks of an angry and “victimized” Trump still empowered to “govern” will bleed so much more blood from the nation. He will have to be thwarted at every turn each and every day, so the hard work of restoration can begin now.

      This must start with a national plan to confront the coronavirus pandemic that is raging across America and much of the globe. This cannot wait 10 more weeks. There is no need for a “balanced” discussion because we have no choice. We have seen how a venal leader can lead so many to their demise and so many more to a participatory march to more death and disease.

      Biden must try hard to convince those participatory marchers to turn around, look at those they care about and start protecting themselves and others. This will be a hard sell, and those of us who have already seen this light will have to step up our game as well. It is no longer fine for corporate sloths and all those endangered small businesses to wink at their “no mask, no entry” signs. It is time for local governments to publicly out those businesses that do not enforce mask mandates and social distancing in their community and publicly support those that do.

      I am hardly certain where any of this will end. But I am certain that the false narrative of a caring, giving and committed people has now finally been ripped from our delusional midst. America is not now, nor has it often been, much of anything to be proud of.

      *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Can Joe Biden and Kamala Harris unite America after Trump – video explainer

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      When Joe Biden formally takes over the presidency in January he will face some of the greatest crises to hit the US in recent history: a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans, a devastated economy, a rapidly overheating climate and a deeply fractured nation.
      The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino looks at how Biden and the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, plan to ‘heal’ the country after four years of Trumpism – and the challenges they will face with the prospect of having to navigate these times without a majority in the Senate
      How Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the fight for America’s soul – video More

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden's victory marks the end of a chapter, not a new beginning | Lloyd Green

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      America dispatched Donald Trump from office but placed Joe Biden under the Republicans’ watchful eye. The US Senate does not appear to be changing hands and Nancy Pelosi’s House majority narrowed. The US simultaneously rejected Trump the man and calls from the Democrats’ left wing to defund the police. A cultural center of sorts prevailed.Against this backdrop, Biden’s victory marks the end of a chapter, not a new beginning. But transitional figures can be essential; remember Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Ford.The president-elect’s speech on Saturday night was presidential and soothing. Think of it as a momentary respite as tempests thrash the ship of state and Trump’s refusal to concede picks up pace. From the looks of things, Mitch McConnell is on board with him.The former vice-president’s win was also record-setting. For the seventh time in eight presidential elections, the Democrats won the popular vote, a first for any US political party. Biden also scored the most votes ever received, and the largest share by a challenger to a sitting president since FDR beat Herbert Hoover in 1932.The 2020 presidential election wasn’t a landslide but it wasn’t a squeaker either. By the numbers, Biden’s triumph was about energized Black voters in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit, younger Americans, and enough white voters walking away from the president. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren could not have pulled it off. Biden’s mandate is personal.Looking ahead, he stands to confront a GOP-led Senate and supreme court filled with three Trump-picked judges. If this reality emerges as the operative status quo, a Biden presidency may never come to fill a judicial vacancy. Even as Biden flipped at least four states from red to blue, Trump surpassed his 2016 totals. In other words, his upset of Hillary Clinton was not an aberration. Trump’s performance bedevils liberals and pollsters alike.Nationally, white suburban women again went Republican. The GOP held the line in down-ballot races. In hindsight, the Democrats’ gains in the 2018 midterms were stronger signals of the president’s own weaknesses than a wholesale rejection of the GOP. In fact, two years earlier, the Republicans actually tightened their grip on the Senate.Trump also expanded his margins in Florida with a three-point win. Across the US, urban unrest helped him hold on to seniors despite his musings of cutting social security and Medicare. Crime also made a difference for Latinos.Beyond that, identity politics’ allure appeared limited even as three-quarters of the country viewed racism as a serious problem. Affirmative action suffered defeat in California, Biden’s strongest state, and led to Trump performing slightly better among Asian Americans nationwide than in his initial run.These hot-button issues will be with us for the near future. The trial of the University of North Carolina’s admissions policies just kicked off on Monday.For the Democrats’ avowedly multicultural coalition, its broader underperformance has already led to internal feuding. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the leader of “the Squad”, is unrepentant and unbowed. Corbynism is a losing proposition. There is no reason to believe that it will fare better in the US than in the UK.On the other side of Capitol Hill, McConnell emerged with close to an unalloyed triumph. So far, the Republicans lost only one Senate seat despite predictions to the contrary. Whether the balance of power shifts after Georgia’s run-off elections slated for early January remains to be seen.For the moment, he stands to wield power without the headache of responsibility if Trump leaves the White House on schedule. With Biden in the Oval Office, McConnell need only answer only to his donors, wife and caucus – in that order.But not yet. On Monday, he announced his support for the president’s challenge to the election’s results. When the chyron from Fox News reads “Not the end of the republic” as McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, you cannot help but wonder.McConnell would also not say whether he had seen evidence of fraud that warranted overturning the election. Weimar was not that long ago and Gladiator remains the movie for our time. More

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      in Elections

      Brace yourselves. The next Donald Trump could be much worse | Bhaskar Sunkara

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      Joe Biden has defeated Donald Trump. Millions across the country are applauding the downfall of a president who has been mendacious in his public communications, loathsome in his personal conduct, and utterly inept in his handling of a pandemic that has killed 230,000 Americans.Amid the celebration, however, there should be nagging fear. Biden ran largely on the idea that he will be a return to the normalcy of the Obama years. But if he governs as a “normal” Democrat, it won’t be long before we have to deal with the next Donald Trump.The real Trump buried himself in blunders and couldn’t deliver on campaign promises to voters. Instead of saving manufacturing jobs and protecting, as he pledged, “the jobs, wages and wellbeing of American workers before any other consideration”, the Trump administration eliminated paid overtime rules, created tax cuts for the rich and lost 740,000 manufacturing positions this year alone.Yet a different Donald Trump might have handled the coronavirus pandemic competently and launched an ambitious infrastructure and jobs program capable of improving the lives of millions of people. Without actually challenging oligarchs and big business interests, this alternate-reality Trump might have been able to effectively marry economic populism with xenophobia, the same formula that has propelled rightwing authoritarians to power elsewhere in the world. A different Trump might have even managed to win over enough voters who typically vote for Democrats, including black and brown voters, to expand his base into one capable of winning the popular vote.As bad as the last four years have been, we’ve been lucky to get the actual – bumbling – Trump, as opposed to a more effective politician, an American Narendra Modi or Jair Bolsonaro.We’re not preordained to go the route of rightwing populism, of course. Countries like Denmark, Portugal and Spain have cemented left-of-center governments in recent years and held the right at bay. But to prevent the rise of another Trump, liberals are going to have to start thinking more seriously about what gave us Trump to begin with.Trump was not just a product of latent racism and sexism. The economic hypocrisy of recent Democratic administrations alienated part of the Democrats’ traditional blue-collar voting base, not to mention the millions of unaffiliated voters who simply opted not to vote for either Clinton or Trump in 2016. It’s these voters, not the wealthy suburbanites which many in the party’s establishment cater to, that still hold the keys to American politics.Biden won simply because of how unpopular Trump isBiden won simply because of how unpopular Trump is. Democrats will need to offer Americans something different – a type of politics that can activate irregular working-class voters and deliver on bread-and-butter economic issues – if they’re to create a stable and responsive government.Progressives have to challenge the centrist policies of past Democratic administrations. But they will also have to resist narrow identitarianism within their own ranks. There can be no mass progressive politics if we insist on only talking to those who already agree with us. By staying siloed in the progressive bubble we implicitly reject the possibility of organizing workers of all races, rural and urban alike, behind a program of Medicare for All, good union jobs and a Green New Deal.Biden campaigned differently than Clinton did. He embraced a slightly more populist message and campaigned in areas the former secretary of state neglected. But the thrust of his proposed method of governance is closer to the normal of the Clinton and Obama administrations than the one advocated by Biden’s erstwhile, more leftwing allies, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.Under Bill Clinton, that “normalcy” saw much of the manufacturing base of the United States gutted, mass incarceration accelerated and essential welfare supports eliminated. Under Barack Obama, millions of people were deported, establishment figures like John Podesta were given White House posts, and even during a Great Recession there was no serious attempt to break with decades of failed economic policies.When Hillary Clinton told voters that she had been in politics for 30 years, there were plenty of reasons for voters to be skeptical, given what happened to their lives and communities during 30 years of stagnant wages and soaring inequality. By deciding to play the role of populist, Trump was able to win over just enough of them to sneak into the White House.He squandered whatever mandate he had. If Joe Biden does the same, the next rightwing president might not. More

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      in US Politics

      Soul of the nation: how Joe Biden's faith will shape his presidency

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      He carries a rosary in his pocket, one that belonged to his dead son, Beau. On election day last Tuesday, he went to mass, as he does every Sunday.
      In his victory speech on Saturday night, he quoted from Ecclesiastes: “The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season – a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.”
      For only the second time in US history, a Catholic will occupy the White House when Joe Biden is sworn in as the country’s 46th president. A man of profound faith, he has pledged to restore the “soul of the nation” after four years of rancour.
      At his side will be a vice-president who, as well as being the first woman of colour to hold the position, comes from a family that has embraced the Baptist church, Hinduism and Judaism.
      Catholic bishops in the US were quick to congratulate the president-elect, acknowledging that he will be only the second president to be a Catholic, John F Kennedy being the first.
      “At this moment in American history, Catholics have a special duty to be peacemakers, to promote fraternity and mutual trust, and to pray for a renewed spirit of true patriotism in our country,” said José Gomez, archbishop of Los Angeles and president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
      Biden’s Catholicism is at the core of his life and is likely to shape the way he governs as president.
      “I’m as much a cultural Catholic as I am a theological Catholic,” he wrote in his book, Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics. “My idea of self, of family, of community, of the wider world comes straight from my religion. It’s not so much the Bible, the beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, the sacraments, or the prayers I learned. It’s the culture.”
      Less than two weeks ago, in an article for the Christian Post, Biden wrote: “My Catholic faith drilled into me a core truth – that every person on earth is equal in rights and dignity, because we are all beloved children of God.”
      As president, he added: “These are the principles that will shape all that I do, and my faith will continue to serve as my anchor, as it has my entire life.”
      Several of Biden’s campaign ads featured footage of his meetings with Pope Francis. In a 2015 interview, Biden said Francis was “the embodiment of Catholic social doctrine that I was raised with. The idea that everyone’s entitled to dignity, that the poor should be given special preference, that you have an obligation to reach out and be inclusive.” More

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      in US Politics

      The tasks Joe Biden faces: from racial justice to restoring faith in science

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      The coronavirus pandemic and healthcareAs the coronavirus pandemic tore through the US, Joe Biden’s most important promise to the American people was a policy platform taken for granted prior the Trump presidency: believe science.America was already falling behind other developed nations on a panoply of key health metrics when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and the worst of the pandemic is likely to bear down just as the Biden-Harris administration takes office.After Donald Trump chose to downplay the threat of the virus and spread conspiracy theories, the US led the world in Covid infections and deaths.Currently, more than 100,000 people per day are being diagnosed with the coronavirus. Experts predict as many as 200,000 Americans per day could receive Covid-19 diagnoses by Thanksgiving. More than 237,000 Americans have already been killed by Covid-19.Some analyses suggest more than 90,000 Americans have died unnecessarily – and these figures probably underrepresent the problem.Biden has pledged, “disciplined, trustworthy leadership grounded in science”, including another stimulus package, robust and free testing and treatment, investment in pandemic planning, and more support for underfunded public health authorities. A coronavirus taskforce is already being formed.At the same time, Biden will have to wrestle with the fallout from the Trump administration, most notably, a supreme court case that could overturn the signature achievement of the Obama-Biden administration, the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.Should the ACA be overturned, 20 million Americans could lose insurance during a pandemic, joining the ranks of 12 million who lost employer-sponsored coverage amid pandemic-induced layoffs, and the 27 million who lacked insurance at the beginning of the pandemic. This would make the uninsured crisis worse than that which drove the law’s passage.It could also have unintended consequences. Biden will need to reckon with an insurgent left animated by a desire for single-payer healthcare called Medicare for All. This group is likely to be unsatisfied by incremental reform.Restoring trust in science will not be simple after four years of lies, half-truths, misdirections and conspiracy theories. Jessica GlenzaThe economyWhen Biden enters the White House on 20 January many epidemiologists are hoping that the US will be pulling through the worst phase of the coronavirus pandemic. Where the economy is heading is less certain.Covid-19 and the global economy are now so intertwined that there seems no certain hope of economic recovery until the virus is under control.The pandemic triggered a wave of shutdowns and record levels of unemployment and temporary layoffs. Some 20 million people lost their jobs in April as the unemployment rate hit 14.7%, the highest on record. Unemployment fell sharply to 6.9% in October but weekly claims for unemployment insurance remain historically high and the number of longterm unemployed is rising. The economic impact on the poor, women, people of color and the young has been dire.Biden has pledged to use his presidential powers to force businesses to take the pandemic head on and increase testing and tracing, as well as manufacturing more personal protection equipment and ventilators.He has said he would also issue new stimulus cheques to hard-hit Americans and increase payments to the unemployed that were cut by the Trump administration. Some of the cash would come from rolling back Trump’s biggest achievement – his $1.5tn tax cuts.Expect Republicans to try to block or curtail new spending bills. Having run up a record $3.1tn budget deficit – the gap between what the US spends and what it earns through tax receipts and other revenue – Republicans are talking about the need to balance the books. The path for Biden’s recovery plan will be long and hard fought. Dominic Rushe More