Donald Trump elected president | The return of the beast

Donald Trump, for four more years. The Americans chose to send him back to the White House. It may seem difficult to understand, seen from here, but a majority of voters preferred darkness to light. A chaotic and dangerous era is dawning in the United States – and well beyond.

The Americans missed the opportunity to write a new page in their history and elect a woman to the presidency for the first time. Instead, they chose to resume a chapter already known, but which promises to be even darker than the one which marked Donald Trump’s first term in the White House.

There was no suspense. Election night was anxiety-inducing and depressing from start to finish. We held on to hope as long as we could. At some point, we had to face the facts: it will be Donald Trumpall over again. Enough to sink into serious post-election depression – and not just because we will be forced to endure Trumpist antics for four more long, interminable years.

If it were only that, it would be almost – almost – funny, in any case certainly very entertaining…

But it’s much worse than that, I’m afraid. The stakes have never been so crucial. For the United States and for the rest of the planet.

There are those who say that the Quebec media covered too much of the American electoral campaign. After all, this is not our country, these critics point out. Aren’t we a little, a lot “colonized”, they say, to be so interested in what is happening south of the border?

This forgets to what extent the outcome of this election will influence the rest of the world.

Of everyone. Ours. That of the Middle East. That of Ukraine. This Trumpist victory, let us not forget, is also that of Vladimir Putin.

Throughout this eventful electoral campaign, we have oscillated between anxiety and enthusiasm, between dismay and great hopes.

We are not only talking about diplomatic relations which will cool or customs tariffs which will skyrocket.

We are talking about a democracy that is faltering. For a long time, we had taken it for granted: nothing could shake our colossal neighbor, the leader of the free world! But now the democracy that we thought was immutable is slowly eroding before our eyes. Without us being able to do anything about it, or very little.

We are talking about the return to power of a populist and revanchist leader, who has plunged into violent, racist and misogynistic rhetoric in recent weeks. A leader who relentlessly attacks the integrity of his country’s institutions.

You have to be naive or unconscious to think that the return of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States will have no impact on our lives. It will have a lot of it.

“Living next to you is like sleeping with an elephant. No matter the temperament and kindness of the beast, we remain affected by all its tics and growls,” Pierre Elliott Trudeau told Richard Nixon during his first official visit to the United States in 1969.

Imagine if the beast was suddenly no longer nice.

If she starts admiring the worst autocrats. If she surrounds herself with servile loyalists and hunts down, as promised, the “enemies within”. If she expels millions of “illegal” immigrants who, according to her, are poisoning the blood of America…

Imagine a beast more unstable and grumpy than ever. Sleeping next to him, for the next four years. We risk being kept awake very, very often…

We believed in it, however. Kamala Harris could have stood in the way of Donald Trump, once and for all. But, like Hillary Clinton, she failed to break “the highest and hardest glass ceiling.”

The Democratic bet was risky. THE post-mortem will be painful. Joe Biden will be blamed for hanging on, without giving Kamala Harris a chance to make her mark. All of this will be analyzed, from every angle, in the coming weeks.

But already, we can deplore that the Americans do not seem ready to see a woman – a black one at that – occupy the Oval Office.

This result is a slap in the face to millions of Americans and, especially, American women.

Those that Donald Trump boasted of being able to “grab by the pussy”. Those, numerous, who claim to have fallen into his clutches over the years. Those, even more numerous, who have lost the right to control their own body.

Those who refused to go back.

Without a doubt, this return of Trumpism will have disastrous consequences for the world in general, and for American women in particular. Make America Great Againproclaim his supporters. Give back to America this fantasized greatness where women would wisely return to their stoves and their kids. Alas, we are getting closer.