I imagine that right now a lot of people are excited or are breathing a sigh of relief. There is unfortunately nothing to be excited or relieved about though. This is not America's new dawn.
Donald Trump is/was an awful president and never should've gotten into the White House in the first place, but I think that people are too hung up on how unsubtly terrible he is. People have forgotten that the pre-Trump status quo wasn't any good either. People don't understand that we didn't get to the situation of 21st century America just because of one person or one political party. The Democrats are at worst simply the other side of the same coin that the Republicans are on, and at best too weak to stand up to them.
Biden will simply give the illusion that things are better. Biden is a career politician who knows how to play this game, he obviously knows not to behave like Trump or say things in the way that he does. We are talking about a man who has adamantly been against single-payer healthcare the entire time (and that position has been officially endorsed by the Democratic party itself). Who played his part in our student debt crisis and prison problem. Who has said on national television that "nothing will fundamentally change" in regards to the ultra-rich. Who can't even bring himself to legalize marijuana at the federal level. And so on. And the thing is, nobody is going to pressure Biden to keep his campaign promises or to pursue real progress, because for the next 4 years all that will be going through most people's heads will be something along the lines of "I'm so glad the bad orange man isn't in office anymore!!!!!". Criticisms will be met with "just shut up and be glad Trumps's not president anymore, it'd be worse if it was him".
Some people might be thinking right now that well, even if Biden's not that great, there's still all the other elections too, those are important and where things will get better, right? The problem is though is that the same issue with the presidency repeats itself in congressional elections, in state elections, in local elections.
So now people might be thinking "but it was still still important that this happened so that the country didn't implode so we can try again and do better in 2024". Try again? Ha. You know what's going to happen in 2024 and all future elections in our lifetimes? The American people will continue to reject the candidates that would really do this country the things it needs in favor of the next Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, as they have always done. The few people who make it through into less powerful offices that are progressive and/or check off diversity boxes are simply just that--a few, and so will never have the numbers to make meaningful change in this country. Any candidates or movements that gain a lot of momentum will simply be crushed by the establishment.
The nightmare did not begin with Trump in 2016, and it will not end with Biden in 2020/2021. It swirls and churns unending, you see.
