Biden and Harris' victory, a second chance for multilateralism.

Genius and figure, until the grave, at which time Joe Biden's mathematical victory was made public by obtaining a sufficient majority in Pennsylvania and Nevada, the acting president of the United States of America played golf. Shortly before that, he had issued a statement refusing to admit what was clearly already arithmetically inevitable. 
Although there are indications that the Republican Party leadership is now maneuvering to disengage itself from the Trump clan, it is still possible that some of its most ardent supporters are trying to push the situation to the limit of what is legally permissible, and even beyond, testing the strength of American institutions.

It would be a sad culmination to four years in which Donald Trump has broken many molds and conventions of American democracy, shattering the most elementary forms of expression of diplomacy, civility and civility, both within and outside American borders, without the Republican-majority Senate having put a stop to the White House tenant's exuberant exuberance. On the contrary, it treated the impeachment process to which Trump was subjected like water, and gave the president its support in naming a third of the Supreme Court justices, the last of them in a crude display of sectarianism 'in extremis.

In the many crises that the U.S. republic has suffered, there has never been a case of a president in rebellion, so the transition to the new presidency will take place in unknown waters if the Trump family persists in its obsession. A priori, the next milestones are dictated by the constitution; the states must name their delegates to the electoral college before December 8. The convention marks that this is done according to the result of the state's presidential election, even though, strictly speaking, states have a discretionary power to formalize the appointments.  

The next step is a meeting of the delegates in their respective state capitals on December 14, when they must vote for their state's chosen candidate. Congress must then meet on January 6 to certify the electoral college votes and proceed to declare the president-elect, who is to be inaugurated at 12 noon on January 20. 

This process may be clouded by a combination of challenges and desperate maneuvers, such as enabling alternative lists of delegates to the electoral college on January 14 in states with Republican legislative majorities, which would put Congress - currently in a Democratic majority - in a very difficult position, even though projections at the time of concluding this analysis indicate that the Biden-Harris tandem will obtain 306 delegates. If a compromise is not reached, and consequently enter into a situation of deadlock, Nanci Pelosi, as president of Congress, would assume the presidency in office, given that Donald Trump will cease for all purposes on January 20.

 
Even ruling out unlikely attempts at organized violence, led by the militia groups with which Donald Trump has flirted during his presidency, tolerating the presence of a renegade president in the White House during the transition period would lead to the de facto institutional suicide of the country's deans of liberal democracy, so it does not seem a sustainable scenario beyond a few days, because the longer this anomaly continues, the more the proponents of violent resistance will be encouraged to take the Second Amendment at face value, and the law into their own hands. The consequences of this are too serious for institutions to accept to take the risk. 

Thus, the hard core of Trumpism is likely to sustain and fuel the story of the illegitimate president for years, possibly making a schism in the Republican Party inevitable if Trump's corps guard stubbornly obstructs Biden's term in office, driving the state to paralysis. However, if we take as a reference the fate that movements based on charismatic hyper-leadership have had once the curtain fell, it is doubtful that 'Trumpism without Trump' is viable, and it is to be expected that the former president will soon be ostracized.

With these wicks, the task that Biden and Harris have before them seems heroic. The easy part will be to restore institutional dignity to the White House. Trump's dysfunctional nepotism has set the bar so low that the recovery of presidential honorability will be swiftly revealed. More difficult will be the task of depoliticizing the public administration, one of the hallmarks of the modus operandi of Trump and his cronies. The network of vested interests is extensive, and the very survival instinct of the Trumpists, protected by a public polarization comparable to the climate that degenerated in the American Civil War, will force the Biden team to deconstruct this network, showing great prudence and generosity, and with the intelligence necessary to avoid the partisan traps that will plague their mandate.  

Therefore, Biden and Harris' first priority is to bring order to the house. Only if their administration is freed from the shackles of the Trumpian era will it be able to draw back the curtains of the White House, to see the world with the necessary clarity and perspective.

The global problems continue to be exactly the same as they were before the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November, but Biden will find himself in a very different world from the one he knew as Obama's vice president, a world that is still pandemic, in which the only space the US can occupy - with the consent of the rest of the countries - is that of 'primus inter pares', in a post-hegemonic and hyper-dependent global system, whose complexity Trump has taken it upon himself to demonstrate that it cannot be reduced to transactional exchanges and the racket of suburban bullying. 

There are a number of short-term actions that can do much for the Biden team to regain the confidence of its partners and allies: return to the Paris Accords, return to the UN, point out that America does not see NATO as a market for the sale of 'Made in USA' weapons, and have some conversation with Kissinger about his experience dealing with China. Inevitably, Washington's main partner must be the EU. A speech by Biden in the European Parliament would not be out of place, a sort of 'Ich bin ein Europäer' moment to close wounds freely opened by Trump and some of his more fundamentalist ambassadors.

The EU countries will hardly be able to persuade their respective electorates to increase defense spending if they perceive it as an imposition. On the contrary, Biden and Harris can do a lot by putting the discussion on the level where it belongs, and working one-on-one with the European Commission to make EU countries more ambitious and co-responsible for EU policies on defense, foreign policy and economic development, by agreeing on geopolitical actions in the EU's neighborhood, literally from Algeciras to Istanbul, but also north of Sevastopol. 

One of the few successes of Trump's diplomacy has been the establishment of a framework that facilitates relations between some Muslim countries and Israel. This being very positive, its scope is constrained by the unilateral exit of the US from the Comprehensive Joint Action Plan that succeeded in bringing Iran to the negotiating table to manage through incentives and commitments the control of Tehran's atomic aspirations.

It is imperative that the Department of Defense establish without delay that the policy of sanctions has not produced sustainable results, and work with its European partners to put the agreement back on track, including Israel's new Arab partners in the discussions, and putting Palestine back on the map, with the coordinates of the Madrid Peace Conference but with a 21st century perspective.