A strange blank page

Suddenly, the page has been wiped clean. No part of the script used until now by both parties counts any longer. The age of the former Democratic candidate and his ailments no longer matter. What counts is the age of the Republican nominee, who is only three years younger, has been convicted of 34 felony counts, is admired by his unconditional supporters, first as a superhero of harassment, lies and insults and now as one of survival, court-granted immunity and the protection of Providence.

Trump still doesn’t know what he’s up against. The dark apostle of hate, the prophet of the American apocalypse and convicted criminal will have to look for new weapons against this smiling woman of Indian and Caribbean descent who is 20 years younger than him. For now, the Democrats are flocking enthusiastically around Kamala Harris. Out of fear of Trump, naturally. Fear is at the core of Trumpism. That’s how he won the Republican primaries three times and managed to put the apocalypse at the center of his program with his doomsday prophecy, and that is also how he may revive the Democratic vote until he himself bites the dust.

Trump speaks the language of fear, but he also suffers from it. Like all populist magnates with a political calling since the days of Silvio Berlusconi, founder of this deplorable political lineage, there comes a time when the alternative to power is prison. Everything Trump has done since he lost the election has been aimed at avoiding jail time, and now he needs the presidential magic wand again, with powers reinforced by the Supreme Court, to free himself from all his legal cases. As in a courtroom, the experienced prosecutor who now stands in front of him will not let him get away with anything.

The page is yet to be written. Given the twists and turns in the script, any prediction would be risky. It is strange and also dangerous, as all presidential transitions are, being a period ripe for external enemies to exploit. With Trump, the danger is also internal: his doctrine requires never recognizing defeat and denouncing anyone else’s victory as theft and fraud. The three months until election day on November 5 will be strange, as will the six months until the inauguration on January 20, and perhaps the months that follow if Harris wins and Trump refuses to recognize the result, as is to be expected.

Joe Biden will remain in office, a lame duck with no room for action and with the explosive foreign policy portfolio in the middle of the presidential table. On the one hand, the election campaign is underway, and on the other, the two wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the growing tension in the South China Sea, where there is a threat of escalation that the president must avoid. And there is Netanyahu’s fourth visit to Congress, where Kamala Harris was not present, in the first thorny interference between the two paths.

The horizon has suddenly opened up. The dark clouds remain. Nothing is written. But hope is reborn.

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