Unwritten Tomorrows of a Trump Era

Yes, he's back. And his second inaugural address, uncharacteristically mild in its delivery but predictably vile in much of its content, served as a partial reminder of what the next four years portend for the United States and its imperial interests.

- MAHIR ALI

Last November, Donald Trump became the first contender since Grover Cleveland in the 19th century to score non-consecutive presidential victories.

Much of the blame for this twin atrocity can be attributed to the Obama and Biden administrations, which respectively facilitated his ascendancy by clinging to neoliberal imperatives in the wake of the global financial crisis, and then failed to learn lessons from their 2016 follies to avert a second coming.

In his farewell speech, Joe Biden sought to echo Dwight Eisenhower's famous diatribe against the power of the military-industrial complex by verbally targeting the tech oligarchs.

In both cases, however, the question would be: if you were so perturbed by these phenomena, why did you not do anything about them while you held power?

Without directly taking credit, Trump on Monday mentioned in passing the previous day's ceasefire in Gaza, citing the release of hostages as an achievement. It is widely accepted that pressure from the incoming US administration was crucial to sealing the deal. And anyone with an ounce of humanity can only welcome the halt of daily killing sprees and the possible suspension of barriers to aid that are believed to have claimed upwards of 70,000 lives in 15 months, mainly those of women and children.