Trump's legacy and hurdles for Biden's presidency

More than two weeks after the US presidential election on November 3, although Ameri-can media already trumpeted Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden as the winner with 306 out of 538 electoral votes, US President Donald Trump keeps refusing to concede. His legal fight against the election results would become more hopeless with each passing day. Trump's time as US president is drawing to a close.

US President Donald Trump makes a fist as he walks after speaking in a campaign rally at Laughlin/Bullhead International Airport in Bullhead City, Arizona, U.S., October 28, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

But surely, he won't both physically and ideologically disappear from US politics in Biden's hypothetical first presidency and beyond. He will surely become Biden's main po-litical opponent. He personally or one of his men or women will rival Biden or for someone else from the Democratic Party in the next US presidential election in 2024. That is why Trump is now trying at much as he could to preserve and build up his legacy from his now ending four-year-walk from business-making into politic-enjoying. And his legacy will certainly create uncountable hurdles and challenges for Biden and his female running mate Kamala Harris.

The Biden/Harris pair inherits from Trump a deeply divided, confused and unstable America in both the politics and the society. It will be very hard and burdensome for Biden/Harris to succeed in securing bipartisan cooperation in politics and to reconciliate Trump's supporters and Biden's backers. If Biden/Harris are unable to mend this double division during their term in office, they then would hardly maintain the Democratic Party in the presidency longer. Only through uniting the country, both politically and socially, they could prevent Trump and his allies from again dominating the US politics and society.

During his presidency, Trump has pursued policies which have profoundly changed the US and its relations with the world. Biden has pledged to reverse many of Trump's politi-cal directions but it is obviously much easier to say than to do. Trump has already made many things "fait accompli" so that Biden needs much time and harder work to revoke them if they were still yet to be revoked. Trump apparently strives to force Biden to deal primarily with his legacy rather than to govern the US in the next 4 years.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by Ambassador Tran Duc Mau are of his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Hanoitimes.