US ELECTIONS : ACT 8, TIME FOR THE MOVERS

So, the arsonist is gone...almost. The trucks of the movers appeared (finally) at the White House but in his last 24 hours Trump might still booby-trap the residence. He leaves a country divided, a world in the emergency room and every form of humanism banned from the GOP lexicon. Trump changed the world by dumping the American dream.

The formerly accepted (albeit reluctantly) borderline which separates truth from lie has become an after-thought from better times, already relegated to history books. The Trump tribes who invaded the Capitol are the real face of Trumpism. The (almost) former president might enjoy the nouveau riche taste of the arrivists, but his Sturmtroopers are to be found in a ragtag of losers, conspiracy junkies and right-wing lunatics.   In the end, he became a hybrid of Maduro and Pol Pot.

Biden assumes an existential task. In four years the world lost its normative compas. Freaky leaders followed Trump's calling. It is not because Europe doesn't have the "costume drama" which prevailed in America last week, that it doesn't have its own devils. They wear grey suits but share the same agenda. The West still doesn't seem to understand that the cracks in the wall might become irreversible. The accumulation of problems is structural and may no longer be able to survive a stress test. The new president will need to be an engineer of sorts, engaged in repairing, replacing and rebooting. Western Europeans had better be helpful and generous, for their own sake.

Years ago climate change looked, rightly so, as the treshhold for survival. This is likely to be overhauled by the social, moral, economic ills that will befall the next generation. Covid-19 is becoming a looming perverse frontier for the West. In this approaching black hole only China might find its calling.

One had better wish that Trump's last hours pass, but remain ready for a nefarious curtain call.