Applause

Applause is due to the ordinary working people of America who turned up in their millions yesterday to change the political tide. They passed judgement on Trump and his gang and the divisiveness they have wrought - including starting an unnecessary war that threatens peace and economic stability around the world.

Of course, the increasingly senile president accepts no responsibility for this electoral battering. He has even claimed that if his name had been on the ballot papers instead of the nominees he endorsed, the defeat would not have happened.

But deception and dodging responsibility is part of his DNA. The other night I tuned in to a video that examined his academic career at Fordham University in New York (1964-1966) and The Wharton Business School at The University of Pennsylvania (1966-1968).

Although Trump has often boasted of his academic prowess and high achievement, it seems more than likely that he made it all up or at least exaggerated everything. He left virtually no mark in the two universities' records and former students who should have been his classmates simply cannot remember him being there. His transfer to Wharton was a very dodgy affair with his father calling in favours to get him in.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone. 

Anyway - back to yesterday. As I am sure you already knew, The Democrats did better than  expected - convincingly winning back both houses. Some great Democrats have emerged through the process including James Talarico in Texas and surely a true presidential candidate in the form of Jon Ossoff  from Georgia.

This morning I had tears in my eyes as I watched Amy Klobuchar's acceptance speech upon becoming the new Governor of Minnesota. I believe that, like Jon Ossoff, she also has the potential to go on to be the next Democrat president. She emanates intelligence, humanity, honesty and doggedness. Four qualities that Trump has never possessed.

Prior to the elections, Rep. Ilhan Omar from Minnesota was victimised by Trump's agents. They surrounded her humble Washington D.C. home at six o'clock in the morning before searching it thoroughly - taking away laptops and phones and private papers. It was a blatant attempt to discredit and shake her. So far no evidence of any wrongdoing has surfaced. Yesterday her victory at the polls in Minneapolis was resounding - winning 76.5% of the votes cast in District 5. I think that this is what Americans might call giving Trump "the bird" (English: two fingers).

And so yes - applause to Democrat voters  who turned out en masse in every state yesterday and won the day. But now the battle begins to make a better America - to make the great ocean liner of nationhood shift its course, to see beyond the Trump years and re-establish fundamental political values and aspirations that chime both with ordinary Americans and the free world beyond its shores.