What a long time it feels since Republican presidential candidate John McCain gently took the microphone from the supporter who said she couldn’t trust his rival Barack Obama because he was “an Arab”. “No ma’am,” McCain replied. “He’s a decent family man, a citizen, who I just happen to have disagreements with.”
The US election we have just lived through felt more like a prize fight than an act of thoughtful democracy. Donald Trump claimed Haitian immigrants were eating pets and called Kamala Harris a fascist. President Joe Biden called Trump supporters “garbage”, just as Hillary Clinton once called half of them “deplorables”. It may seem as if nothing can ever be put back together again.
I felt a similar spate of emotions after the UK’s vote to leave the EU. A mounting concern about the outcome and what impact it might have, coupled with a sense of awe at the power of democracy. In 2016, people who hadn’t voted for decades came out to vote for Brexit. In 2024, over 90 per cent of America’s 3,000 counties swung toward Trump.