I don’t know about you, but this week has felt very, very long.
For me personally there were a string of very late nights working on a funding application to bring a building project to life, even before the US election. Then there were days and nights of endless phone checking to see if we knew whether America had made the world a safer place or not.
When my phone beeped on Saturday afternoon and I saw the notification that said “BIDEN!!!” on the screen, I whooped for joy.
The collective sigh of relief around the world was palpable.
Yes, there will definitely be those who say that this was more about Trump losing it than Biden winning it or that it should have been more of a landslide, but the Biden/Harris ticket received more votes than any other presidential candidate in history.
A Break In The Chain
My life has been blessed with the gift of travel since I was very young. At the age of 7, my parents took us to Disneyland and DisneyWorld on our way from Australia to the UK. In those days it was Reagan. As a teenager, my parents took us to DisneyWorld again, by this time George Bush Snr was in the White House. When I went travelling as an 18 year old, my final stop was in New York, in the Clinton era. In my mid twenties, I took a trip to see friends in Texas and go riding in Montana. That was with George W in the White House. Tilly and I went to Las Vegas to stay with my best friend in the Obama years.
Without knowing it, I had visited the USA under 5 consecutive presidents.
When Trump was elected, I knew there would be a gap, a break in the chain.
My delight in the outcome of this tortuously close and drawn out election is manifold.
The World Is A Safer Place
- Nuclear Codes – please check out Trump’s Twitter account and tell me if you’re really happy for him to have them? Biden may not have served in the military, but he was a senator for 36 years and had two stints as Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee so he at least understands what he’s doing… and he isn’t chums with Putin.
- Climate Change – the single biggest challenge we face as a species, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Joe Biden has already publicly stated that rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement is on their hot list once he is in office.
We Can Be Friends Again
- Misogyny – Trump’s level of open misogyny remains abhorrent. From his “locker room chat” to his policies on women’s reproductive rights, women and girls saw their progress in the fight for equality eroded. Kamala Harris is the first female vice president elect in US history. Glass ceiling shattered for women in US politics.
- Racism – Trump’s responses to a variety of situations gave far right groups no reason to believe that he didn’t agree with them. Aside from the “very fine people on both sides” comment, there were his openly racist attacks on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the other members of her “squad” in Congress and his handling of the Black Lives Matter movement this summer. Kamala Harris is the first black vice president elect, and the first south Asian vice president elect. Another couple of glass ceilings shattered.
- Guns – one of Trump’s first spiteful and senseless directives was to roll back Obama’s legislation making it harder for those with mental illness to acquire guns. He consistently supported the rights of gun owners to have guns over the families of those who were killed by them. Gun control is one of the pillars of Biden’s campaign.
- LGBT+ – Trump’s administration targeted trans people repeatedly, from protections of trans children in schools through the treatment of trans prisoners, servicepersonel and even the homeless. This election has seen the first transgender Senator and openly gay black congressman elected. Biden has promised to undo the damage Trump did.
The USA is no longer on my “no way Jose” list. Granted we’re probably not going anywhere for another year or so because of corona, but 2022 has DisneyWorld written in it on the future planning section of my journal. Tilly is delighted.
More Glass
- And outside politics, Chris Nikic has become the first person with Downs Syndrome to complete the Iron Man.
Whilst 2020 has been a year of WTAF moments, it has also shown us that anything is possible.
Until next week,
Rhiannon Xx
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