This time there’s no doubt as to the protagonists. Donald Trump and senior members of his family and administration fomented a violent attack on the US Capitol, on the day the 2020 election results were due to be certified by Congress. The aim was clearly to disrupt or stop the vote count that confirmed Joe Biden as President. Rioters had come prepared, wearing gas masks and combat fatigues, and carrying plastic cuffs and pepper spray. Extremist groups had planned their […]

As Donald Trump rapidly fades from public life, it would be easy to imagine that the threat to America’s democracy has passed. Joe Biden’s first few months of administration have been competent, stable and popular. A degree of normalcy appears to be returning. Yet, rather than reflect on a brand that has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight elections, Republicans have chosen instead to double-down on their commitment to minority rule. Driven in part by the […]

Exiled at his golf club in Florida and barely seen since leaving office, Donald Trump is to once again take centre stage as a second Senate impeachment trial commences on February 8th. The trial is unprecedented – and bizarre – in a number of ways. A conviction would merely remove a man from a job he has already left. The President is accused of inciting violent insurrection, so his Senate jurors were also the intended victims of the crime. Yet […]

This is really bad. Following the most consequential attack on America’s seat of government since 1814, new information is coming to light that suggests an even darker, more sinister side to the story. After days of pressuring Mike Pence to illegally overturn the electoral college results, Donald Trump held a rally in Washington on 6th January, the same day Congress was preparing to vote on what would be the final confirmation of Joe Biden’s win before the inauguration. Speakers at […]

When Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa in 1994, he faced a dilemma. The leaders of the now fallen apartheid regime had presided over a system that routinely imprisoned, tortured and killed many of its black citizens, and an entire generation of white politicians faced trial and imprisonment for clear and outrageous human rights violations. Mandela had more reason than most to thirst for retribution, having endured nearly three decades of imprisonment, but wisely recognised that healing his nation’s […]

Trump has lost. Joe Biden has won. America’s democracy appears to have narrowly dodged a bullet, but although few elections in US history have caused such an outpouring of joy, in the cold light of day Americans will have to face up to what remains a disturbingly bleak picture. Politically, the nation remains gravely divided. 73-million Americans took stock of the last four years, saw the racism, corruption, nepotism and extraordinary incompetence, and still cast their ballot for Donald Trump. […]

The appointment of judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States represents a stunning coda to Donald Trump’s four years of shredding American political norms and institutions. Barrett’s lack of experience and extremist views, coupled with the extraordinary timing of her confirmation, make this the most controversial Supreme Court appointment in American history. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wasted no time in discarding the dying wish of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that her replacement not be appointed […]

Back in the 1980’s, New York mafia boss John Gotti earned the nickname ‘the Teflon Don’ because no matter what the law threw at him, nothing ever seemed to stick. Yet while Gotti seemed invulnerable for years, his biography is of a man they couldn’t get – until they did. Gotti’s crimes finally caught up with him, and the Teflon Don died alone in jail. America’s teflon president has shown a similar ability to defy political gravity. As candidate, Trump’s […]