The election is over in the U.S. and a new president has been elected. This time the polls had two candidates in a virtual tie for favorability with the American public. As sometimes happens, the polls were off and Trump won both the electoral vote and an overall majority. The latter is not necessary because the system tallies a candidate's performance in each state, and sparse population states may be over-represented because each state has two senators. It was the price paid to bring them into the union.
Leaders have also been burdened with ethical problems. If Trump was defending a hush money case -- now abandoned by the prosecutors -- Biden too had problems four years ago. He was being accused of forcing his attentions on female staffers as a young congressman, and his son Hunter, who had drug problems, was into influence peddling. As with Trump, who in theory could have been running the White House from prison, Biden's difficulties dissipated rapidly after he was elected; all for the simple reason that the president is the ultimate head of the justice department and the Attorney General reports to him.
Asked by reporters what Trump would do if the attorney general brought up the case where he was president, his sharp response ... he'd fire the guy in two seconds. Justice has never been the same for the rich and the poor alike, or the well-connected. So it was for the wives of Henry Viii and so it is now. The Jefferson Memorial celebrates Thomas Jefferson. But think about his 'second family' with his black slave Sally Hemings. By the way, there were plenty of disbelievers of the affair until DNA evidence confirmed the connection.
The real question now is what the new Trump administration will prioritize. In foreign policy the two regions of violent discord are Ukraine and the Middle East.
Vladimir Putin looked decidedly pleased with Trump's win. The latter wants to stop the drain on the U.S. treasury, and work for a settlement with the Russians who currently hold about a fifth of Ukrainian territory ... likely the area with a Russian population. The lines of settlement then are fairly obvious if one ends the Biden policy of bleeding the Russians.
In the Middle East, ending Israel's Lebanese adventure should not be too difficult. The crux of the problem is Gaza and Netanyahu wanting to (just imagine) denude it of its 2 million Palestinian population. The way that Trump presents himself -- he would be silent. But he seems to have forgotten the remaining Arabs in the region, particularly Egypt next door that is hardly likely to welcome them.
And so it goes on with a seldom seen comatose president and a vice president who finally discovered what the people thought about the new administration. No surprise either that we are not hearing much from the pollsters after their fiasco.
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