Whispering hope from a white-washed sepulcher

The world’s most powerful democracy the United States is still in turmoil after white racist terrorists or hooligans—apparently instigated or inspired by the outgoing US President Donald Trump—stormed the citadel of the country’s democracy, the Capitol Hill or the US Congress.  The attack took place while the US Senate and House of Representative members were meeting to certify the Election of Joe Biden as the US President and Kamala Harris as the Vice President. 

On Thursday the US Senate majority leader Mitch McConnel and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked that Mr. Trump be sacked before January 20 when Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris will be formally inaugurated. They said this could be done under Article 25 of the US Constitution. It will require Vice President Mike Pence to summon a meeting of the US Cabinet whereby on a majority decision they could sack Mr. Trump. Yesterday, the Speaker’s Office announced the House would take action next Wednesday to impeach Mr.Trump.

Vice President Pence who had been loyal to Mr. Trump for four years turned against him last week after the outgoing President persisted in his outrageous, absurd and baseless allegation that the November 3 presidential election was rigged or stolen from him. Mr. Trump regularly called on his white racist base to take action and they did so with a vengeance after he addressed the rally on Wednesday. He asked the racist mob to march on the US Congress building where hundred Senators and more than 400 House members were meeting to certify the Electoral College votes after all the State governors also had certified the results. 

Some political observers say that the mob attack on the US Congress was widely expected but the level of police security was suspiciously low. The mobs broke through the police cordons and some of these white racists even broke into the hallowed chamber. One of them broke into the Speaker’s office and left a threatening note while another sat on the chair of the Vice President who was presiding at the session. 

Clearly Mr. Trump won the 2016 election by putting together a base comprising largely of white racist extremists. Most independent analysts say during his four years in office, Mr. Trump was seen as a pathological liar who was dangerously inconsistent or unpredictable in his policies and statements. The situation was so bad that now both Twitter and Facebook have banned him.  One of his most dangerous decisions was to pull out of the Paris Climate Change Accord, which 196 countries have signed.  His most disastrous plunder was the apparent mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.  By this week about 375,000 Americans had died of the pandemic while some 23 million have been afflicted.  Mr. Trump admitted that as early as January last year, scientists had warned him about the deadly effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Mr. Trump does not listen to scientists or other experts. He does not know and often acts on his own, leaving the US in a disastrous situation where it is one of the worst affected countries. 

Whatever Mr. Trump did or did not do, whatever his duplicity, deceit and sometimes even devilry, most analysts who saw Mr. Trump as a white washed sepulcher, believe the Joe Biden-Kamal Harris administration will usher in a new era for the US and the world.  The Biden-Harris administration is expected to take effective steps to end white racist supremacy which has led to the plunder of poor people and poor countries for centuries. Sri Lanka also was a victim.  

The Biden-Harris administration is expected to bring about racial equality, and social justice first in the US and then in most parts of the world.  Going by the principles of the nominees to important Cabinet posts – including the nomination of a member of the indigenous or native community -- Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are likely to give high priority to the time honored precepts of unity in diversity and gender equality.

So eventually the Trump era has turned out to be a case of the darkness before the dawn. We remember the words of an inspiring song, “Soft as the voice of an angel, breathing a lesson unheard, Hope with a gentle persuasion, whispers her comforting word: Wait ‘til the darkness is over, wait ‘til the tempest is done, hope for the sunshine tomorrow,
after the darkness is gone”.