President Joe Biden has his work cut out for him – besides domestic terrorism and a raging pandemic, he also has to find a way to deal with a country riven by Donald Trump’s presidency. In his first speech as president Biden acknowledged that the fissures exposed and exploited by Trump were not created by the former president, but that:
“The forces that divide us are deep and they are real… racism, nativism, fear, demonisation… ” He also mentioned “extremism” as one of the wrongs America has to overcome.
While he may need more than his soul to help his country work through this morass of isms, he may well get the support he needs from a variety of sources. It will, however, be a hard slog to pull together a nation so fractured that some people felt their best chance at democracy was a riot, on 6 January.