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      Hoping for a return to normal after Trump? That's the last thing we need | Yanis Varoufakis

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      Normalcy and the restoration of a modicum of decorum to the White House: that is what many elite supporters of Joe Biden hope for now that he has won the election. But the rest of us are turned off by this meagre ambition. Voters who loathe Trump celebrate his loss, but the majority rue the return to what used to pass as normal or ethical.
      When Trump contracted Covid-19, his opponents feared he might benefit from a sympathy vote. But Trump is not a normal president seeking voters’ sympathy. He doesn’t do sympathy. He neither needs nor banks on it. Trump trades on anger, weaponises hatred and meticulously cultivates the dread with which the majority of Americans have been living after the financial bubble burst in 2008. Obscenities and contempt for the rules of polite society were his means of connecting with a large section of American society.
      The reason 2008 was a momentous year wasn’t just because of the magnitude of the crisis, but because it was the year when normality was shattered once-and-for-all. The original postwar social contract broke in the early 1970s, yielding permanent real median earnings stagnation. It was replaced by a promise to America’s working class of another route to prosperity: rising house prices and financialised pension schemes. When Wall Street’s house of cards collapsed in 2008, so did this postwar social contract between America’s working class and its rulers.
      After the crash of 2008, big business deployed the central bank money that refloated Wall Street to buy back their own shares, sending share prices (and, naturally, their directors’ bonuses) through the stratosphere while starving Main Street of serious investment in good-quality jobs. A majority of Americans were thus treated, in quick succession, to negative equity, home repossessions, collapsing pension kitties and casualised work – all that against the spectacle of watching wealth and power concentrate in the hands of so few.
      By 2016, the majority of Americans were deeply frustrated. On the one hand, they lived with the private anguish caused by the permanent austerity to which their communities had been immersed since 2008. And, on the other, they could see a ruling class whose losses were socialised by the government, which defined the response to the crash.
      Donald Trump simply took advantage of that frustration. And he did so with tactics that, to this day, keep his liberal opponents in disarray. Democrats protested that Trump was a nobody, and thus unfit to be president. That did not work in a society shaped by media which for years elevated inconsequential celebrities.
      Even worse for Trump’s opponents, portraying him as incompetent is an own goal: Donald J Trump is not merely incompetent. George W Bush was incompetent. No, Trump is much worse than that. Trump combines gross incompetence with rare competence. On the one hand, he cannot string two decent sentences together to make a point, and has failed spectacularly to protect millions of Americans from Covid-19. But, on the other hand, he tore up Nafta, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement that took decades to put together. Remarkably, he replaced it swiftly with one that is certainly not worse – at least from the perspective of American blue-collar workers or, even, Mexican factory workers who now enjoy an hourly wage considerably greater than before.
      Moreover, despite his belligerent posturing, Trump not only kept his promise to not start new wars but, additionally, he withdrew American troops from a variety of theatres where their presence had caused considerable misery with no tangible benefits for peace or, indeed, American influence.
      Trump’s opponents also frequently called him a liar. But Trump is not simply a liar. Bill Clinton lied. Again, Trump is far worse. He has an ability to spew the most incredible untruths, while, at the very same time, telling crucial truths that no president would ever admit to. For example, when accused that he was de-funding the post office for electoral gain, he destabilised his accusers by admitting that, yes, he was restricting funding to USPS to make it harder for Democrats to vote.
      Trump’s rudeness to his opponents, however disagreeable, might have even brought some relief to the forgotten Americans who associate Biden’s politeness with the gentle mercies that the former vice-president reserves for Wall Street and the super-rich who bankrolled his campaign. Not unreasonably, they see Biden as a polite emissary of the bankers who repossessed their homes and, at once, a member of an administration that bailed out – with public money – those same bankers.
      They hear Biden’s sleek, well-mannered speeches about unity, respect, tolerance and bringing citizens together and they think “no, thanks, I don’t want to be united with, or tolerant of, those who got rich by shoving me in a hole”. To them, Trump’s behaviour is an ugly but welcome manifestation of solidarity with ordinary folks who feel empowered by the combination of the president’s vulgarity and his evocations of America’s irrepressible greatness – even if, deep down, they never expected their prospects to improve significantly when America becomes “great again”.
      The tragedy of progressives is that Trump’s supporters are not entirely wrong. The Democratic party has demonstrated time and again its determination to prevent any challenge to the powerful that are responsible for the pain, anger and humiliation that propelled Trump to the White House. Democrats can talk until the cows come home about racial justice, the need for more women in positions of power, the rights of the LGBT community etc. But, the moment politicians like Bernie Sanders threaten to challenge the power structures that keep black Americans, women, minorities and the poor in society’s margins, they go all out to stop them.
      Trump’s supporters are unlikely to articulate this in so many words. However, their contempt for the liberal establishment is rooted in the realisation that the rich Democrats behind the Biden-Harris ticket won’t ever truly change conditions for the poor. Any redistribution of wealth and power that threatens their kids’ trust fund, or soaring asset prices on Wall Street, are off-limits – and those voters know that.
      Against this background, however hard Biden tries to speak the language of some Green New Deal, no one can imagine him uttering a phrase like Franklin Roosevelt’s, who referring to bankers once said: “They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.” Without a readiness to confront the greatest concentration of corporate power in the history of the United States, even the most amiable of presidents will fail to deliver either social justice or serious climate change mitigation. At least Trump wasn’t hypocritical, his supporters might say.
      So yes, Joe Biden has won. And thank goodness for that. But let’s understand that he did so despite, not because of, his social graces or promise to restore normality to the White House. The confluence of discontent that powered Trump to power in 2016 has not gone away. To pretend like it has is only to invite future disaster – for America and the rest of the world.
      Yanis Varoufakis is the co-founder of DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement), former finance minister of Greece and author of And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe’s Crisis and America’s Economic Future More

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      Democrats left to sift through aftermath of ‘blue wave’ that never crested

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      Joe Biden secured a historic presidential victory on Saturday yet some Democrats have spent the tense days since the election engulfed in recriminations, finger-pointing and infighting as they sift through the aftermath of expectations of a “blue wave” that never crested.
      Long-simmering tensions between moderate Democrats who represent conservative districts and progressives who have massive online followings erupted into public view, after a series of unexpected losses in parts of the country where the president proved surprisingly resilient.
      Once united behind the shared priority of removing Donald Trump from office, swaths of Democrats are now racked with anxiety and uncertainty over a path forward.
      Moderates accused liberals of embracing “socialism” and supporting leftwing proposals to “defund the police”, which Republicans weaponized against vulnerable Democrats. Progressives argue that the base powered many of the party’s biggest victories and that it was the lack of an inspiring message – and not their politics – that hurt members. Meanwhile, Democrats were alarmed by Trump’s apparent success with Hispanic voters in some battleground states.
      In the weeks before the election, Democrats had begun to imagine the legislative agenda their party could deliver with an undivided Congress and a new Biden administration. House Democrats anticipated expanding their majority by a significant margin – potentially even double digits. In the Senate, Democratic challengers, fueled by a historic wave of donations, appeared poised to knock off enough Republican incumbents to take the gavel from Mitch McConnell, even in states such as Iowa and South Carolina where Democrats rarely win statewide.
      As Democrats engage in what has become a ritualistic practice of soul-searching, there are unlikely to be any easy answers. The election delivered a mix of successes and disappointments for both parties, raising complex questions about their coalition and their message.
      For now, Democratic leaders are trying to keep the focus on their victories – Biden defeated Donald Trump, they will retain their majority in the House and control of the Senate will be decided by a pair of runoff elections in Georgia in January.
      “This has been a life‑or‑death fight for the fate of our democracy,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told reporters on Friday, with tens of thousands of votes still uncounted. “We did not win every battle in the House, but we did win the war.”
      Tensions came to a head during a private conference call with House Democrats on Thursday, part of which was made public by the Washington Post, when the congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, a freshman who narrowly held on to her seat in a conservative-leading Virginia district, accused her liberal colleagues of costing the party seats by referring to themselves as “socialists”.
      “If we are classifying Tuesday as a success,” she added, using an expletive, the party will get “torn apart in 2022”.
      Republicans struggled to portray Biden, whose reputation as centrist, bipartisan dealmaker was forged over the course of his decades-long political career, as a captive of the radical left. But there was evidence the attacks were more effective on Senate and House candidates, particularly those running in a forbidding environment.
      Moderates have pointed to Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, which Biden flipped but where Democratic candidate Kara Eastman, a progressive who supported Medicare for All, lost.
      “The whole ‘progressivism is bad’ argument just doesn’t have any compelling evidence that I’ve seen,” the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who identifies as a democratic socialist, wrote on Twitter. She added that such attacks by Republicans are about “racial resentment” and “you’re not gonna make that go away.” More

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      'This is a country of possibilities': Kamala Harris's speech in full

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      Good evening.
      Congressman John Lewis, before his passing, wrote: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.” And what he meant was that America’s democracy is not guaranteed. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it, to guard it and never take it for granted. And protecting our democracy takes struggle. It takes sacrifice.
      There is joy in it and there is progress. Because we, the people, have the power to build a better future. And when our very democracy was on the ballot in this election, with the very soul of America at stake, and the world watching, you ushered in a new day for America.
      To our campaign staff and volunteers, this extraordinary team – thank you for bringing more people than ever before into the democratic process and for making this victory possible.
      To the poll workers and election officials across our country who have worked tirelessly to make sure every vote is counted – our nation owes you a debt of gratitude as you have protected the integrity of our democracy.
      And to the American people who make up our beautiful country – thank you for turning out in record numbers to make your voices heard.
      I know times have been challenging, especially the last several months. The grief, sorrow, and pain. The worries and the struggles. But we’ve also witnessed your courage, your resilience, and the generosity of your spirit.
      For four years, you marched and organized for equality and justice, for our lives, and for our planet. And then, you voted. You delivered a clear message. More

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      'Spread the faith': Biden and Harris victory speeches offer message of unity – video highlights

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      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have offered a message of unity as the pair spoke following their election victory. Harris, who will be the first woman to be vice-president, paid tribute to her mother. For Biden, his speech was an opportunity to offer an olive branch to his political rivals after nearly four years of division under Donald Trump
      ‘We must restore the soul of America’: Joe Biden’s victory speech in full – video
      ‘You chose truth’: Kamala Harris’s historic victory speech in full – video More

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      How can Biden heal America when Trump doesn’t want it healed? | Robert Reich

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      It’s over. Donald Trump is history.
      For millions of Americans – a majority, by almost 5m popular votes – it’s a time for celebration and relief. Trump’s cruelty, vindictiveness, non-stop lies, corruption, rejection of science, chaotic incompetence and gross narcissism brought out the worst in America. He tested the limits of American decency and democracy. He is the closest we have come to a dictator.
      Democracy has had a reprieve, a stay of execution. We have another chance to preserve it, and restore what’s good about America.
      It will not be easy. The social fabric is deeply torn. Joe Biden will inherit a pandemic far worse than it would have been had Trump not played it down and refused to take responsibility for containing it, and an economic crisis exacting an unnecessary toll.
      The worst legacy of Trump’s term of office is a bitterly divided America.
      Judging by the number of ballots cast in the election, Trump’s base of support is roughly 70 million. They were angry even before the election (as were Biden supporters). Now, presumably, they are angrier.
      The nation was already divided when Trump became president – by race and ethnicity, region, education, national origin, religion and class. But he exploited these divisions to advance himself. He didn’t just pour salt into our wounds. He planted grenades in them.
      It is a vile legacy. Although Americans have strongly disagreed over what we want the government to do, we at least agreed to be bound by its decisions. This meta-agreement required enough social trust for us to regard the views and interests of those we disagree with as equally worthy of consideration as our own. But Trump continuously sacrificed that trust to feed his own monstrous ego.
      Elections usually end with losing candidates congratulating winners and graciously accepting defeat, thereby demonstrating their commitment to the democratic system over the particular outcome they fought to achieve.
      But there will be no graciousness from Trump, nor a concession. He is incapable of either.
      He will be president for another two and a half months. He is still charging that the election was stolen from him, mounting legal challenges and demanding recounts, maneuvers that could prevent states from meeting the legal deadline of 8 December for choosing electors.
      If he continues, America could find itself in a situation similar to what it faced in 1876, when claims about ballot fraud forced a special electoral commission to decide the winner, just two days before the inauguration.
      I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump refuses to attend Biden’s inauguration and stages a giant rally instead.
      He’ll send firestorms of aggrieved messages to his followers – questioning Biden’s legitimacy and urging that they refuse to recognize his presidency. This will be followed by months of rallies and tweets containing even more outlandish charges: plots against Trump and America by Biden, Nancy Pelosi, “deep-state” bureaucrats, “socialists”, immigrants, Muslims, or any other of his standard foes.
      It could go on for years, Trump keeping the nation’s attention, remaining the center of controversy and divisiveness, sustaining his followers in perpetual fury, titillating them with the possibility he might run again in 2024, making it harder for Biden to do any of the national healing he’s promised and the nation so desperately needs.
      How can Biden heal the nation when Trump doesn’t want it healed?
      The media (including Twitter, Facebook, and even Fox News) could help. They have begun to call out Trump’s lies in real time and cut off his press conferences, practices that should have started years ago. Let’s hope they continue to tag his lies and otherwise ignore him – a fitting end to a reality TV president who tried to turn America into a reality warzone.
      But the responsibility for healing America falls to all of us.
      For starters, we’d do well to recognize and honor the selflessness we have observed during this trying time – starting with tens of thousands of election workers who have worked long hours under difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances.
      Add to them the hospital workers across the nation saving lives from the scourge of Covid-19; the thousands of firefighters in the west and the emergency responders on the Gulf coast battling the consequences of climate change; the civil servants getting unemployment checks out to millions of jobless Americans; social workers dealing with family crises in the wake of evictions and other hardships; armies of volunteers doling out food from soup kitchens.
      These are the true heroes of America. They embody the decency of this land. They are doing the healing, rebuilding trust, reminding us who we are and who we are not.
      Donald Trump is not America.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US More

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      With humility and empathy, Biden speech seeks to make America sane again | David Smith's sketch

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      Joe Biden ran jauntily on to the stage, wearing a black face mask but suddenly looking several years younger. Looking, in fact, like millions of Americans felt, with burdens to bear but a spring in his step.
      The new US president-elect offered a Saturday night speech that did not brag or name call, did not demonise immigrants and people of colour, did not send TV networks and social media into meltdown and did not murder the English language.
      After the mental and moral exhaustion of the past four years, Biden made America sane again in 15 minutes. It was an exorcism of sorts, from American carnage to American renewal.
      Donald Trump’s performative populism revealed a Biden-shaped hole that America never knew it had. It has been widely noted that the unthinkable losses he endured in his long life made him the right person at the right time for a grieving, coronavirus-ravaged America.
      But his political setbacks also strike a chord as a model of perseverance, an everyman who had shrugged off life’s disappointments and kept smiling. His runs for president in 1988 and 2008 crashed and burned, and when Barack Obama failed to encourage him to try again in 2016, that appeared to be the end of the road.
      Instead he came back for one final act that rendered him the hero of his own story, not a supporting player in someone else’s. Biden proved not to be a Salieri to Obama’s Mozart. It was a victory for solid, unspectacular strivers everywhere. Such humility is essential at this moment of division. It produces magnanimity rather than crowing over the losing side.
      “For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of times myself,” he said wryly. “But now, let’s give each other a chance.
      “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again. Listen to each other again. And to make progress, we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They are Americans. They’re Americans.
      “The Bible tells us to everything there is a season, a time to build, a time to reap, and a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.” More

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      'This is the time to heal': Joe Biden addresses Americans in election victory speech

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      President-elect Joe Biden declared victory in the US presidential race on Saturday and called for Americans to come together after years of partisan rancor.
      “The people of this nation have spoken. They’ve delivered us a convincing victory. A clear victory,” Biden told the crowd of supporters in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
      Biden became the president-elect after several days of vote counting when major news outlets called Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes for the former vice-president. Soon after the Pennsylvania call, media outlets announced Biden had also defeated Donald Trump in Arizona and Nevada, giving him a total of 290 electoral votes. Echoing the introductory speech by his running-mate, Vice-President-Elect Kamala Harris, Biden in his speech pledged to be a president for all Americans, including the 70 million who voted to re-elect Trump.“I pledge to be a president who seeks not to divide but to unify,” Biden said.
      The incoming 46th president acknowledged the current era of hyper-partisan politics and tense race relations across the country. “Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end – here and now,” he said.
      “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again,” Biden added.
      “To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans. 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,” Biden said.
      And he acknowledged the historic nature of his campaign, and the supporters that buoyed it even when it struggled to stay afloat.

      “To all those who supported us: I am proud of the campaign we built and ran. I am proud of the coalition we put together, the broadest and most diverse in history. Democrats, Republicans and independents,” Biden said. “Progressives, moderates and conservatives. Young and old. Urban, suburban and rural. Gay, straight, transgender. White. Latino. Asian. Native American. And especially for those moments when this campaign was at its lowest – the African American community stood up again for me. They always have my back, and I’ll have yours.”
      Cars at the Chase Center convention venue honked and supporters cheered throughout the address.
      Biden’s speech was as much a celebration as it was an acknowledgement of the momentous tasks his incoming administration faces. The US confirmed 126,480 new coronavirus cases on Friday, a record number for a third day in a row. Millions of Americans are still losing their jobs each month, and the climate crisis is worsening.
      Biden is likely to enter his first term as president with a divided Congress, where Democratscontrol the House of Representatives but Republicans hold a majority in the Senate.
      Biden on Saturday formally announced a new taskforce to plan federal efforts to curb the virus. “On Monday, I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisers to help take the Biden-Harris Covid plan and convert it into an action blueprint that starts on January 20 2021,” Biden said. “That plan will be built on a bedrock of science. It will be constructed out of compassion, empathy, and concern. I will spare no effort – or commitment – to turn this pandemic around.”

      Biden was introduced by Kamala Harris, the California senator who is now the vice-president elect. She noted the historical aspect of her ascension to the vice-presidency, becoming the the first woman of color to inhabit the office. She thanked Biden for helping break “one of the most substantial barriers” and picking a woman as his vice-president. She vowed to be a vice-president for all Americans.
      It was a theme the ticket would return to repeatedly. Biden stressed the need for unity in addressing the challenges the country faces going forward, and he reached out to supporters of Donald Trump – one of the only times he and Harris directly name-checked the president in their remarks.
      “And to those who voted for President Trump, I understand your disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of elections myself,” Biden said. “But now, let’s give each other a chance.”
      It’s unclear whether Trump will continue the traditions past presidents have kept when leaving office, both because of term limits and electoral defeat.
      Trump has not conceded the race and he and some of his advisers say that the election results are laced with fraud. Those claims are unfounded. After the race was called for Biden, Trump sent out several angry tweets, baselessly alleging vote count irregularities.
      The White House signaled that it would have no more public events on Saturday. The 45th president went golfing earlier in the day.
      During Biden’s speech, Trump was in the executive residence of the White House with the first lady, Melania Trump. It is unclear if he watched Biden’s remarks. As of Saturday, Trump had not extended an invitation to meet with Biden, as presidents normally do with their successors.
      After Biden’s speech, the campaign shot out fireworks as the incoming first and second families watched together on stage. The fireworks included the Biden campaign logo and the words “president-elect” and “vice-president-elect.” More