Biden’s warm inauguration words will not reset the dials. The era of US global leadership can’t be rebuilt quickly, if at all
Donald Trump departed today from the American presidency as he arrived four years ago: vain, cruel and telling lies, without any vestige of grace or magnanimity.
There was no acknowledgment of, still less apology for, his deranged delinquency in the face of Covid, or of his election defeat – failures that made the nervy, locked-down inauguration of Joe Biden inevitable. But Trump leaves having changed America.
Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist