The Democrats have failed to stop a true radical. The new Republican Party, not the Democrats, want to change the country and the world in such a way to make it barely recognizable.

The Democratic Party’s message in effect was more of the same: “We are not going back”! Trump, the people around him, and his supporters, on the other hand, longed for a real change in politics along the lines of: Why do we need the old institutions, which have cost us money over the last few decades, allowed too many immigrants into the country, tied us up in countless wars and led our industry and the “American Way of Life” into decline?

A new order in politics is emerging. Or rather, this new order has already arrived. The old labels of right and left are less revealing today than they once were. Of course, Trump and his supporters used the slogans and ideas of the far right to reach certain groups of voters. But even in many of the old Democratic labour-union strongholds, there is now widespread scepticism about the capabilities of the authorities, government and the rule of law to solve the country’s problems and to put out the fires that are currently raging around the world. This has caused many people to defect to the MAGA camp.

The target of this scepticism was not only Biden and Harris, but also the liberal engagement of the USA in the world since 9/11. This liberal world policy had been embraced by the old order mainstream Republicans (Bush II) and Democrats alike. Of course it is more than doubtful whether this view is correct and whether Donald Trump and his allies and enablers in the White House and the emerging Republican majority in Congress will seriously address these problems. But yesterday’s election has created facts on the ground. And the fact is that the US, Germany, Europe and the rest of the world will have to deal with this phenomenon. The populist’s return to the White House worries many people, and rightly so: people who are concerned about increased inequality in US society and the rights of minorities and women in the US, as well as those who consider international institutional cooperation to be a valuable asset. 

An appropriate response to this new reality is not yet in sight. Europeans and democratic forces around the world will have to work together even more closely, because the 47th US president will not be like any ‘leader of the free world’ we have seen in the past.