election reflection

It’s taken me a few days to be able to process it and respond to it, but here’s my little tuppence-worth on what has transpired over in America since Tuesday.
For a start – I thank God I don’t live there. Our Brexit referendum shenanigans may have got a little heated at times, but nothing like the undercurrent of armed chaos constantly simmering Over The Water.
I think the telling moment in the whole affair was the difference in the two men’s behaviour while the count was still going on. Joe Biden was pleading for calm and asking for the democratic process to be allowed to happen in the fullness of time; Donald Trump was trying to throw a spanner in the works, accusing everyone of conspiring against him, and stoking up the rhetorical outbursts. (Apologies if that sentence didn’t make sense – I lost interest in what I was trying to say after typing the word ‘Trump’).
I, like many other people around the world I suspect, just feel incredibly relieved that the outcome has fallen the way it has. There will still be fallout and there will still be a defiance from the present incumbent and an infantile attempt to hang on to his power, but I have a feeling that there are mechanisms in place behind the scenes that will basically hamstring him from now until January. I don’t lean either way, politically speaking. My support and my vote and my opinion has always been influenced by the personality and the behaviour of the individuals involved, rather than by policies or any particular allegiance to a party or an ideal. I was amazed, disappointed and fearful when Mr Trump was elected 4 years ago, but there was a part of me that hoped he would treat the Office with respect and compose himself accordingly. I hoped all his supporters were right and all the naysayers were wrong and that maybe, against expectations, he would be a great President and exactly what the 21^st Century needed in a leader.
Nope.
So – yeah – not nailing any political colours to any masts, but I don’t think there’s ever been an election result in another country that has been met with such delight by me, and by the people I know around me here in Britain. There is still shit to deal with, and the World is still a mightily dangerous place, but it somehow feels safer, and in safer hands.

RC 9-11-20