America's Faustian bargain

I know it doesn't do to dwell on what-if's, but it's hard not to muse on what life might have been like had Donald Trump not been elected by a relatively slim majority.

Had just a few thousand voters here and there in swing states decided not to vote for nastiness, hatred and selfishness - and here I can't help but think of the swathes of immigrants who voted for Trump because they thought he would somehow make them a little bit richer; did they really not think it through? - America would be living under a Kamala Harris presidency, and the status quo would be very much in force.

Ms. Harris was never going to set the world on fire, but then that's the whole point. The United States would be doing very nicely thank you, just as it was under Joe Biden - the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world, with the grudging respect of the rest of the world.

Instead, it is now more deeply polarized than ever before, riven by hate and division, and buckling under the yoke of a super-wealthy plutocracy. Years of painstaking gains in environmental and social policy have been scuppered overnight. The populace, Republican and Democrat alike, is starting to feel the effects of the unnecessary and ill-advised tariffs. Hundreds of thousands have been, or are soon to be, laid off from their jobs. Hundreds of thousands more live day to day, traumatized by the prospect of being kicked out of the USA, sometimes the only country they have ever known. And any respect and goodwill the country may have enjoyed across the world have come crashing down, and America is thought of abroad as a maverick state and a pariah on a par with Russian and China.

Good job, guys.

And the rest of the world? I'm not saying that everything was entirely hunkydory before Trump was elected. But, despite wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, it was at least functional. Today, Trump's ongoing tariff war with every country on earth has set everyone against everyone else, and the whole world is teetering on the edge of recession. Multinational organizations and humanitarian agencies have been hamstrung and hung out to dry. China has nimbly stepped into the USA-shaped vacuum in international relations and, frankly, is looking pretty good in comparison.

To say that the American public struck a Faustian bargain in November last year is putting it mildly indeed. Right now Mephistopheles is running rampant across the world.