Democracy is in retreat around the world – in Germany, Italy, France, Argentina and many other places. And now the US has re-elected Donald Trump.

I am guessing most people who read this would never vote for Trump. But if you have friends or relatives who did, I don’t care how dear they are to you or how offended you are at what I have to say about them.

The best among them are simply idiots. For example, the people who voted for him because they are angry at Biden’s unconditional support for Israel. Don’t they see that Trump will be even worse on that score? That he has accused Biden of holding Netanyahu back? That he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem when he was last in power? That his slimy son-in-law, whose father, like Trump himself, is a convicted criminal, is drooling at the thought of all the beachfront development sites in Gaza?  

Another class of idiots are the conspiracy theorists. Like the people who believe the last election was stolen from Trump. Or those who believe that the many indictments he faces are all a conspiracy to take him down. Or those who believe that George Soros is trying to take over the world and that only Trump stands in his way (George Soros is 97, for Christ’s sake).

Then there are the bigots and the bullies: racists, homophobes, Islamophobes, misogynists, those who believe that rape is okay and that women, Hispanics, blacks, jews and other minorities need to be put in their place. The kind of people who want to rewrite history to show that slavery was good for the blacks.

And, at the very bottom of the food chain are the ultra-rich: the people who believe that they stand to gain from a Trump Presidency, and don’t care that it will be at the expense of the poor, and, ultimately at the expense of the planet itself.   

I stand by my intention never to visit the USA again. There is so much of it I would like to see. And I know that there are parts of it where Trump is hated. But I will never go back.