Joe Biden has won after a razor’s edge election but the Republican Party could be the real beneficiary if it has the good sense to redeem itself after being Donald Trump’s poodle.

New opportunities will open for both Democrat and Republican Parties if they have the audacity to move to the bipartisan center. That would help to rescue US politics but may be a hope too far despite Biden’s bipartisan talents because American voters remain dreadfully divided.

Americans turned out in such unprecedented numbers for both Biden and Trump not because they want to come together as a people but because they loathe the other side deeply enough to thwart victory for it.

Some may think these angry divides are undermining American democracy but the billions living under governments that deny them transparent battles of ballot boxes would give almost anything for such freedoms.

It is admirable freedom to be able to go at one another tooth and nail just to choose a ruler every few years.

Yet more splendid is the certainty that the winner will never be allowed to turn into a lifetime despot, free to rain oppression upon the people to cling to power and siphon their wealth.

Biden cannot succeed as President unless progressives and moderates recognize the legitimacy of those who chose Trump in such large numbers. He cannot heal rifts if his supporters continue to disdain the others as obscurantists and racists.

He has drawn a blueline in the Midwest despite Trump’s complaints about legality. But this Maginot Line will not resist onslaughts unless his partisans learn to listen respectfully to the other nearly half of Americans.

It is possible that Biden will not be able to champion progressive ideas because of his weak position in the US political context.

But the blame should be shared because the best progressive Democrats often shelter in facades far distant from the actual living conditions of people less blessed.

In turn, moderates tend to cluck in uncertainty about what they should stand for when extremes start warring and catastrophes like Covid-19 strike everyone without regard to intellectual hauteur.

The sorriest spectacle in America’s enviable democracy has been the Republican Party’s decline as an ethical force in US politics.

It was especially tarnished by Trump’s distinctive brand of truth telling and the moral obfuscations and genuflections of its long-standing leaders.

Trump’s losses offer the Republican Party a second life. Its “Never Trump” factions had the courage to stick to their moral and conservative convictions. Almost everyone else bowed to the blinkered view that his victory would be a win for capitalism and free markets.

With striking amorality, numerous Republican politicians branded as socialism the most fundamental duties of any government to expand social justice and income equity without discrimination. And to do so, if necessary, by using some private wealth to benefit ordinary citizens instead of only shareholders.

Since Republicans will hold the Senate and Democrats will lose some of their majority in Congress, Never Trumpers will have their cake and eat it too. Trump will be out without Democrat empowerment to pursue a progressive agenda that they abhor.

The miracle now would be for Republicans of all persuasions to exercise good sense to come together to escape their deep moral fog and update American conservatism for this century.

The need is to navigate increasingly hazardous geopolitics during the worst global health crisis in 100 years. America First beliefs are antiquated now.

Pushing Trump out of the White House is much less than the American left and center think. They tend to self-righteously see him as a cult leader who mesmerized followers.

Instead, the elections demonstrated that he was the puppet of a very large swathe of Americans who felt unseen and unheard for decades.

Their visibility has opened new fields of opportunity for politicians smarter than Trump. They could capture a better champion in 2024 to occupy the White House again for them.

Biden does not as yet inspire confidence as a forceful enough leader to disarm the frustrations of Americans who put Trump in the ring.

His win took the biggest spending in election history and Barack Obama to personally perform the most hard-hitting campaigning of which he seemed incapable.

Among other things, this indicates that Biden’s victory is not his own as Trump’s was in 2016. That implacable combatant nearly won again in 2020 despite hostile media and negative polls. He will not just fade into the quiet night.

Today opens a long road to US political sanity but the stars are not yet aligned for good sense.

Illustration 199201376 © Stavros Damos – Dreamstime.com