Amid an audible and worldwide sigh of relief, this past 7 November 2020 the Alternative-Facts Republic – also known as the Donald Trump administration – received the diagnosis: it was terminally ill, having been voted out of the US government. Today, as Joe Biden took over, it passed away.
The Twitter-obsessed, twice-impeached administration will be remembered for its tremendous contribution to disinformation; for its many conflicted members who either quit, got fired or stand today as convicted criminals; for its proximity to far-right and associated militias; and for its disastrous handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has so far killed more than 400,000 Americans.
The Alt-Facts Republic is dead, age four, but the polarisation and confusion that it fed off – and fuelled – is likely to live on, including the spectre of fabricated claims of voter fraud that could haunt democratic institutions for years.
