It makes little difference to Palestinians which party won when both parties are committed to genocide, the only thing that will save them is for Israelis to say “Enough is enough!” – and there is a small but growing movement among young Israelis who refuse to participate in the slaughter. We’re hearing reports from IDF soldiers who have been so traumatised by the war crimes they’ve committed that they’ve committed suicide. The tide is turning and the best hope for Palestinians is for Israelis to rise up against their own government. It’s possible if US and UK governments can refrain from interfering, and there’s no precedent for that!

Native Americans will suffer! They put a great effort to get the vote out for Joe Biden – often travelling many miles to vote. He rewarded them by appointing Deb Haaland as the first indigenous Secretary of the Interior, she’ll be a loss.

Immigrants will suffer, as will anyone who depends on cheap seasonal labour to do what I did for several years in Australia (although I was there legally). Still, I can’t imagine it would be any different if Harris had been elected!

Half the population of the USA will suffer, the female half! If you have an unwanted pregnancy you’ll have to go through with it even if it endangers your life!

You want to marry someone of the same sex? I know a few people via social media who’ve done that! In fact I was given a nice tweed jacket by a friend who was transitioning, but that’s another story.

Biden has a window of opportunity to correct injustices before he leaves office. Julian Assange and Steven Donziger are technically free but need a pardon to restore their rights – that’s the least they deserve! Leonard Peltier is longest serving political prisoner, he’s been imprisoned for 50 years for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s now 80 years old and his health is deteriorating. This is his last hope.

If Trump pulls out of NATO it will reduce the threat of nuclear war but the world will be condemned to a slow death from his denial of climate change.

So who actually benefits from Trump’s election? Well obviously he does if it keeps him out of jail as a convicted felon, but there are very few I can think of – they’re the wealthiest men on Planet Earth and are competing to colonise another planet. They own the very platforms we depend on to communicate with each other. I’ve read a lot of sci-fi novels but none of them envisaged our present reality.

I’m not saying that Americans should’ve voted for Harris as the least bad choice – the indications are that many voters stayed at home rather than vote for either of them. From what I’ve seen the figures compare with what we saw in the UK General Election, Trump won with fewer votes than he had when he was defeated in 2020! At least I was able to vote Green in the UK, many Americans didn’t have the opportunity after Jill Stein was dropped from the ballot in some states (sorry I don’t have details about this). Democracy in America? Don’t make me laugh 😠

Voting is compulsory in Australia and the only way to abstain is to spoil one’s vote, but they have a preferential voting system. I acted as envigilator for the Australian Labor Party in one election (the candidate was the secretary of our branch and I was treasurer). My job was to watch the counting of the ballots at my local polling station, having stood outside handing out ‘how to vote’ leaflets for most of the day, and challenge any ballot that was put on the wrong pile although not allowed to touch them. We lost that election by a very narrow margin, which meant we also lost NSW, but that’s another story.

What we’re witnessing now is a slide from authoritarianism to totalitarianism. Journalists are being arrested or killed for telling the truth that our authoritarian regimes don’t want us to hear but it goes much further. Our language is being twisted and distorted in such a way that it becomes impossible for us to say what we mean without it being interpreted as meaning the opposite, even if we have a platform on which to say it – that’s verging on totalitarianism!

‘Free speech absolutist’ Elon Musk’s definition of free speech is “I can say what I like, and you can say what I like too!” And he’ll probably have a role to play in Trump administration.