Make América normal again

The slogan "Make America normal again" championed the blue caps worn by many Democratic Party volunteers during the election campaign of the now virtual U.S. president-elect, Joe Robinette Biden. Returning the country to normal will therefore be the fundamental mission that at least half of the American people, the overwhelming majority of Europeans and a large part of the rest of the world expect the 78-year-old to accomplish in his four years in office. 

Biden heads an American gerontocracy with that charge, because alongside him will follow the third state authority, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (80), and also the Republican leader of the Senate majority, the old fox Mitch McConnell (also 78), who will be responsible for continuing to make things difficult for him in the great reforms that cannot be approved except with the help of the Upper House. It is clear that we are entering an inevitable period of transition that will give way to a new and younger generation of politicians who will ventilate the vicious environment of Washington, to the contamination of which not only the murderous coronavirus has contributed, but also a president whose kicks to the hornet's nest have provoked the violent and threatening cracking of the pillars of the system. 

There will be much to discuss about Donald Trump and Trumpism, whose legacy is not going to go away just like that. That, behind Biden himself, Trump was the most voted candidate in American electoral history is a fact of sufficient magnitude not to dispatch him with disqualifying epithets. He is accused of having polarized and divided American society, a situation that in reality had already been going on for some decades until first Barack Obama, and then Donald Trump, deepened to the antagonistic partition that has become evident in the Trumpist quadrennium. 
As an extension of that fracture, the world has also become polarized, so that Biden is now seen as the machinist who is asked, or rather demanded, to put the country back on the rails of its universal leadership. It will be necessary to check not only whether Biden has the will but also the strength to do so. Time does not pass in vain, and the retreat from the international scene undertaken by Trump has been immediately followed by the occupation of the land by other forces and powers, so that the reversal will not be so easy, and not even the return to supposed normality will be the same. 
Having too many illusions could lead to more frustration 

From the European perspective there are so many hopes placed on the new president that perhaps we should lower the fretboard, not that the frustration will be greater later. Getting the American Administration to consider us not as friends but as allies in the construction of the new era will be a great achievement. But we should have no illusions that the United States will once again bear the bulk of the costs of European defense, nor would it be realistic to consider that its protectionist trade policy will disappear as if by magic. 
A return to multilateralism and acceptance of international institutions as the legal framework for discussing differences and settling disputes is probably the most we should aim for, starting with the Paris Agreement to combat the climate emergency. However, we must thank Trump for the fact that his kick to the hornet's nest has woken us up and forced Europe to wake up, take charge of its own present and face the future with realism, that is, to become emancipated and know how to play its trump cards. The world that Obama left us has already begun to be different, and despite his good name and prestige on this side of the Atlantic, he has given us a few reality checks.  Trump, who is even more clumsy, has put us in front of the mirror and has shaken the sleepiness even more. For him Europe was no longer important; the main competitor and adversary is called China, and that concern will also be that of Biden and his team. 
The gerontocracy led by Biden will have to forcefully give way to the next generation, and the steps of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is expected to succeed the President at least as the Democratic Party candidate in 2024, will have to be closely followed. As a woman, of mixed race, of black Jamaican and Indian descent, and with a brilliant resume, she is the sure bet not only of the Democrats but also of the institutional system itself to function as a de facto president.