Opinion | How long can the Democrats hold back America’s far-right tide?

Name: 2020 set to rank as one of Earth’s three hottest years on record, says United Nations
Uploaded: 2020-12-18T19:45:11.000Z
Duration: 2 min 45 s
Description: 2020 set to rank as one of Earth’s three hottest years on record, says United Nations

The world should hope for the good (healing and prosperity), avoid the bad (a repeat of mistakes from the last financial crisis) and pray against the ugly: a permanent right-wing shift in America

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People take part in a “reopen” Pennsylvania demonstration on April 20, 2020 in Harrisburg. The roots of resentment in Trump supporters are complex and signal an anger most non-Americans have difficulty comprehending. Photo: AFP

Andrew Sheng

Published: 3:45am, 19 Dec 2020Updated: 5:29am, 19 Dec 2020

This year must be one of the toughest in living memory. More than 300,000 have died from the coronavirus in the United States alone, the global economy is contracting and millions of people have been driven below the poverty line.

What does the coming decade portend? There are three possible scenarios: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The good scenario is that Joe Biden’s administration heals America and rebuilds the multilateral order, economic growth recovers in 2021, and global trade tensions ease, with better trade cooperation among the great powers.

Climate change is addressed, social inequality reduced, there are better jobs from green infrastructure investments, and we have a decade of peace and prosperity. Stock markets rise as central banks commit to low interest rates, and technology companies are rewarded for innovation.

The bad scenario, however, is more of a muddling through – and a repeat of the opportunity missed in the last global financial crisis in 2008. Back then, instead of addressing inequality and bad financial management, everyone was rewarded with more central bank money.

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2020 set to rank as one of Earth’s three hottest years on record, says United Nations

We ended up with worsening climate change, huge debts and asset bubbles. The rich got richer and the depressed poor migrated from failing states. The middle class felt worse off and blamed immigrants, foreigners and globalisation, voting for Brexit and Donald Trump.