Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1331728
6 NEWS 21.01.2021 O n Wednesday, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. Donald Trump quietly slipped out of Washington shortly before the event for his last flight on Air Force One. As a final presidential wish, Trump asked for a departure ceremony, complete with military honour guard, a red carpet, and a 21-gun salute. His critics may feel that he deserved something closer to a firing squad. In contrast to past inaugurations, Bid- en's ceremony was attended by only around 2,000 carefully selected guests, mostly people who have a direct connec- tion to the US government. e rest of Washington was turned into an armed camp with 25,000 National Guard troops brought in to protect against a ragtag as- sortment of white extremist groups and hangers-on who appear to have swal- lowed an array of astonishingly outland- ish conspiracy theories. e greatest conspiracy theory of all, of course, was Donald Trump's conten- tion that the 2020 election was some- how fraudulent. Having lost by more than seven million votes, Trump insist- ed against all logic and reason that he had, in fact, won. He hadn't. e final tally was roughly 74.6 million votes for Trump and 81.2 million for Biden, who is the first presidential candidate in history to win more than 80 million votes. None of that appeared to make an im- pression on Trump, who continued to promote the fiction that he had actually won despite all evidence to the contra- ry. While Trump's insistence appeared unhinged, it is worth recalling that in the 1930s, Adolph Hitler's chief propa- gandist Joseph Goebbels bragged that it is easy to defeat democracy. All you have to do is lie and keep repeating the lie until the public finally believes you. In Trump's case, the effort was apparent- ly enough to convince three out of four Republicans that something might have gone wrong, although no one could say exactly what it was. While the lie comforted Trump's true believers, it nevertheless failed to convince the rest of the country to dis- enfranchise millions of American voters or to overturn America's democratic system. What it did accomplish was to stir up an angry mob. Trump's last des- perate resort may have been the slender hope that overrunning the Capitol might prevent the certification of the Electoral College results and leave him in office. On January 6, Brian Philips, the exec- utive vice president of Cumulus Media, which controls a nationwide network of conservative talk shows, issued or- ders to all of its stations telling morning conservative talk show hosts to stop re- peating Trump's false allegations that the election had been fraudulent. Philips's warning came too late. A mob of thousands of angry Trump supporters attacked the Capitol. e more vocif- erous leaders of the mob shouted that they wanted to find and kill members of Congress and hang Vice President Mike Pence. To illustrate the point, they rigged a makeshift gallows just outside the Cap- itol building. By then Trump had re- treated to the White House to watch the pandemonium on television. Although clearly aware of what was happening, he made no effort to stop it. With no commander in chief in the chain of com- mand, the Pentagon hesitated to deploy the National Guard. Finally, as the mob closed in on Pence, the Secret Service and the Pentagon decided that it was time to move. A surge in threatening extremist chatter on social media networks has convinced law enforcement and intelligence agen- cies that the assault on the Capitol may have been a preview for an attack on the inauguration itself. With more than enough experience dealing with Islamic terrorists, US security agencies have now begun to realise that they have a domes- tic terrorist problem that may be more immediate. ey not only have several hundred self-styled "militia" movements to deal with, but they also have to contend with the occasional lunatic. Last December, in Nashville, TN, a recluse triggered a mas- sive bomb concealed in a recreational vehicle destroying an entire block in the city's historic downtown. e apparent motive was that the bomber's personal life was spinning out of control, and he wanted to exit life by making some head- lines. Whether personal or political, the damage is the same. Biden's priorities All of that constitutes a powerful dis- traction as Joe Biden considers the chal- lenges that will be facing his administra- tion from day one. Barack Obama had to deal with the financial meltdown of 2008, which at the time was the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. e multiple crises that Bid- en now faces make that disaster almost pale in comparison. e coronavirus pandemic is currently killing more Americans on a daily basis than the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York's World Trade Center. In less than a year, the virus has cost over 400,000 American lives — roughly the equiva- lent of the population of New Orleans. e virus is now mutating and is likely to spread even faster, causing more deaths and economic damage. Operation Warp Speed, the Trump plan to vaccinate the population, has turned into a nightmare of disorgani- zation. Vaccine reserves that were sup- posed to be on hand turned out to be non-existent. It may be summer before vaccination programmes take off in ear- nest. Besides killing millions of people, the pandemic has shut down large segments of both the US and the world economy. Not only are millions of Americans job- less, but the kind of economic resurgence needed to provide new jobs can't be counted on simply because everything, everywhere, has been frozen in place. e question everyone has on their mind is how long can we wait? e answer, of course, is that Americans don't have any choice. Impeachment Biden's first days as president will be further complicated by the fact that an evenly divided US Senate will be asked to deal with the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. While Republicans in the Senate vot- ed in a block to acquit Trump during his first impeachment, this time may be different. ere is no question that Trump's incitement of the mob justifies the charge of encouraging insurrection, but some Republicans argue that since Trump will soon be gone, convicting him will be superfluous and will only accen- tuate a partisan divide. e problem is that even after leaving office, Trump may not be gone. Like Na- poleon, banished to the island of Elba only to escape and again threaten Eu- rope, Trump may already be planning to run for the presidency again in 2024. Convicting him now would enable a sim- ple Senate majority to bar Trump from holding any future office; this would also potentially lessen his influence on the Republicans in Congress who fear that failing to submit to Trump risks retalia- The priorities for the new US