Just as Boris Johnson can count himself very fortunate to have had Jeremy Corbyn for adversary in last year's general election, so Joe Biden was lucky to find himself up against someone as obnoxious as Donald Trump. The fact of the matter is that in terms of expectations and of political power one could almost say that the Republicans won the presidential election.
How could things have come to this? How could a man generally considered to be the worst American president ever, in terms of morality, political choices and competence, have attracted the votes of 70 million people?
It is absolutely vital to find an answer to this question, and not as it were to "muddy the waters" by pointing to the cult-like presence of Trump's base, the deep divisions between moderates and progressives in the Democrat party, and a host of other economic and sociological factors.
In my opinion, these are not the real reasons. The real blame must be laid at the door of the Republican Party which has abandoned any attempt to grapple with the challenges facing the country, preferring instead to pamper to the aforementioned base as a means of hanging onto power, perpetuating greed and promoting racism.
This process is well described in Anne Appelbaum's The Twilight of Democracy and is encapsulated in the French expression le trahison des clercs.
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