Irish Examiner view: Sowing the seeds for an Irish Trump

Why did more than 70m Americans, most of them sane, decent people, vote for an odious, immoral buffoon like Trump? Picture: AP 

Now that the reaction to Wednesday’s assault on democracy moves from the dropped-jaw stage, a more considered evaluation is necessary. It is important to understand why such an affront might be visited on, for all its hubris and embedded racism, a functioning democracy. A democracy that over the centuries offered opportunity to those millions — the poor, the huddled masses — denied it elsewhere.

That pause seems all the more important as president Trump finally acknowledges that Joe Biden will succeed him after a “smooth transition of power”. Any reflection seems even more important as some of Trump’s more strident supporters expressed deep anger at Trump’s claim, as dishonest as any he has made, that he was “outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem” he incited. That pause also seems important as many of Trump’s senior enablers abandon the sinking ship, the waves of consequences washing around their ankles.