There’s no real upside to what has just happened across the Atlantic. On Monday, January 20, Donald Trump will be back in the White House for four more years of chaos and division.
Tariff wars will bring back global financial uncertainty. Conspiracists and fanatics like Elon Musk and Robert Kennedy Jr will hold sway in the Oval Office. The rights of American women and its LGBT+ and migrant communities will be trampled upon.
The populist right’s grip on the US Supreme Court will be strengthened. Trump will evade justice for his part in the January 6 riots, and those who joined him in shaming America will be pardoned.
The climate crisis will be denied and even deepened. Ukraine will be betrayed. Nato will be threatened. The tottering Vladimir Putin will regain influence. Benjamin Netanyahu will be given free rein to do as he pleases in the Middle East.
There’s no handbook on how to process this. Rage-posting and protest marching might be cathartic for some people. Others will prefer to quietly grieve, then organise. It’s all OK – except, of course, that it really isn’t.
But there are things to cling on to. Donald Trump’s second coming is at hand, but so is the end of his time as a political force. It is only 1,536 days away. America and the world survived one term of Trump and it can survive another. He might be able to bend the institutions of the US even further towards the right but he can’t run for president again.
Plus the unfettered power that Trump will assume is likely to last only half that time. His 2018 midterms ended in failure, with the Democrats taking back the House of Representatives. His midterms of 2022 were meant to be his “revenge”. They turned out to be a surprise success for Joe Biden.
We can be confident of the pattern repeating because Trump is likely to once again be a disaster as president. Unfocused, ego-driven, pulled this way and that by advisors with their own agendas, his administration will be driven wildly off course by its captain. The collateral damage will include some of the people who are celebrating today.
Nigel Farage is grinning now. But will that still be the case when his pal is slapping a 10% or even 20% tariff on British exports, putting British forces at greater risk by disengaging from Nato and emboldening Putin for more European incursions by withdrawing support from Ukraine?
And here we come to the greenest of shoots in the rubble of Trump’s victory. All of the above will have a galvanising effect upon the UK and the EU.
With America no longer to be relied upon and willing to let Putin regroup and strengthen, efforts will ramp up for a Europe-wide defence and security pact with vastly increased spending, to include the UK and its powerful defence industry.
This, and the need to improve trade with Europe as trade barriers threaten UK exports to the US – particularly cars and medicines – should be the jumping-off point for a proper reset of the British-EU relationship that goes beyond friendly words into real action. Potentially, even, towards reunion.
As America heads back into the darkness, Britain and the EU may start looking towards dawn.
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