“To heal, we must remember”: Can Biden reverse Trump’s toxic legacy?

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Joe Biden will be sworn in as US President today. Can he reverse Donald Trump’s toxic legacy? Let’s first take a look at what many Americans have just survived, and many haven’t. After a campaign fuelled by racist “birther” theories and misogynist “lock her up” chants, Trump won the Electoral College vote. He rolled back environmental regulations and withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate change, pursued a migrant family separation policy, caused the longest government shutdown in history and declared a national emergency over his demands for border wall funding, said there were “very fine people” in a white supremacist rally in 2017, encouraged police violence towards Black Lives Matter protesters last year and most recently incited an insurrection at the Capitol. This is very, very far from a comprehensive list of shocking acts. He is the first president to be impeached twice.

Biden has not yet delivered his inauguration speech, but has already set the tone for his administration with a memorial on Tuesday evening where he and Kamala Harris commemorated those who have died of coronavirus. Meanwhile, Trump was busy issuing 73 pardons. This included former campaign head and senior adviser Steve Bannon, who was charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering in fundraising efforts supposedly for the Trump wall. Like the outgoing President, he has been banned from Twitter, as Bannon had posted about beheading the director of the FBI and leading immunologist Anthony Fauci. The contrast is stark and Trump’s actions horrifying to the very last moment.

And yet Trump is reportedly discussing his next political projects, perhaps plans to set up a new party. These efforts may fall flat. That everything listed above did take place and that so many failed to condemn Trump while he was in office, however, means a repetition of the last four years is not inconceivable in the future. As Lisa Nandy writes in her piece for LabourList reflecting on the inauguration: “while President Trump is leaving office, his toxic legacy is not as easily removed”. He has legitimised white supremacy and fascist movements. Biden’s challenge to overturn the consequences of the Trump era is made tougher by the US system that makes gridlock almost inevitable, with a finely balanced Senate and midterms just two years away. The scale of the task ahead cannot be overstated.

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