Anyone observing the USA with any attention will have understood that the 2020 election was essentially meaningless. Biden was always going to be a temporary pause in the relentless collapse of the nation, not merely because he's a doddering ineffectual old pol, but because half the country is so astoundingly ignorant and stupid that they continue to vote Republican long after the Party has shown itself to be nothing but a collection of cynical neofascists whose only concern is power at any price.

The USA is already in many ways a failed state, certainly when compared to the rest of the OECD. It ranks near the bottom in education, there is no meaningful healthcare except for the wealthy and the middle-class, there is no social safety net for those who fall on hard times. Its gun violence is so extreme that more young people die of gunshot wounds than from road traffic accidents. Its "entertainment" is relentlessly violent and mindless, and its people are grotesquely obese. Finally, its infrastructure is a wreck, with ancient electricity grids unable to supply power reliably, roads full of potholes, and bridges that are dangerous but can't be closed because there are no alternative routes available.

Where the USA goes today, Europe largely follows tomorrow. Populism is the inevitable result of representative democracy, and populism always reliably ensures catastrophic self-harm. Trump, Brexit, Modi, Orban, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Erdogan, Putin, and so many more are all the fruits of representative democracy and we will see so many more - and more incompetent - examples in the years to come.

Those living in the USA can take heart in knowing that although they truly live in a shithole, the rest of the world is racing to join them in squalor, violence, and intellectual poverty. And the Republican Party will continue to do all it can to descend further into the mire as quickly as possible, while the ever-clueless Democrats continue to act like senile inhabitants of a rest home for the incorrigibly retarded.