20 JANUARY

Preserve, protect, and defend

In the final hours of his presidency, Donald Trump has been remarkably silent without his Twitter megaphone. Attention has turned to taking care of business for the new executive and legislative branches. The Biden team are moving quickly on the first Cabinet confirmations – prioritising national security and economic appointments. Confirmation hearings for Biden's Secretary of State and Director of National Intelligence are already underway. The new Democratic senators for Georgia are likely to be sworn in on Inauguration Day, marking the shift in the balance of power in the Senate. Amidst this, current Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is honing in on a power sharing agreement with Chuck Schumer, including protection of the filibuster.

Recent comments by McConnell suggest Republicans are putting distance between themselves, their party and Trump. This week, McConnell urged Republican senators to “vote with their conscience” in the upcoming impeachment trial and went so far as to say the president “provoked” the riots which led to the attack on the US Capitol.

As Australia looks to the new Biden administration, United States Studies Centre (USSC) Non-Resident Senior Fellow John Lee told News Corp that we could expect Australian-US relations to, “revert to what it generally has been before Trump, which is still a pretty good position.” Tomorrow at 4am AEDT, the United States will swear in its 46th president and first female vice president. The USSC will be providing updates and analysis throughout the day as Biden begins his term in office.

NEWS WRAP

Capitol security scrutiny

Fears of inauguration insider attack | Defence officials in the United States are on high alert ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration, with fears of an insider attack from service members involved in inauguration security as well as potential protests which could turn violent. The FBI is undertaking rigorous vetting of all 25,000 national guard troops deployed in Washington, DC for the proceedings - five times the number of US troops currently deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. READ MORE HERE
Drop in election misinformation | Online misinformation about election fraud dropped a staggering 73 per cent after Twitter and other social media platforms suspended President Trump's accounts and purged thousands of others, according to new research. Findings from analytics firm Zignal Labs showed conversations about election fraud plummeted from 2.5 million mentions to 688,000 across several sites in the week following the president's Twitter ban. READ MORE HERE
Farewell calls | President Trump is noticeably absent from Prime Minister Scott Morrison's recent call list to key members of the Trump administration. The Australian Prime Minister has reached out to both Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo ahead of President-elect Biden's inauguration, but reportedly has no plans to speak to President Trump, according to government sources. READ MORE HERE
A matter of conscience | Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has labelled the impeachment trial of Donald Trump a "vote of conscience," indicating GOP leadership will not hold senators to account for their position on convicting the President. It is expected the trial won't be fast-tracked with the same urgency as last week's House impeachment, with speculation it could take place long after President Trump has left office. READ MORE HERE

The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.

US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
Senate floor speech on the Capitol Hill insurrection
19 January 2021

COUNTDOWN

The final countdown

The 20th Amendment states, the "terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January [...] and the terms of their successors shall begin".

At noon on 20 January 2021 (21 January at 4am AEDT) — 78 days after Americans cast their votes at the polls — Joe Biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the United States.

Tune in to Sunrise on Channel 7 tomorrow to see USSC experts react to the inauguration from 3am AEDT or to Sky News Australia, Channel 600 on Foxtel, from 7am AEDT.

VIRTUAL EVENT

It's 2021 and you're invited!

Following an incredible year of distinguished and insightful guests in 2020, the USSC has some incredible events in the works for 2021 — and you're invited!

Subscribe to our events mailing list to have invitations and reminders sent straight to your inbox so you never have to miss an event. You can also sign up to receive alerts on all of our latest research and publications.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

ANALYSIS

Biden's inauguration is an FDR moment. For Republicans, it's civil war

Bruce Wolpe
Non-Resident Senior Fellow

January 20 is Joe Biden’s first day as president. And Donald Trump’s last.

It is a measure of Trump’s corruption of the zeitgeist that while more than 3,000 Americans are dying each day from the pandemic, with potentially 500,000 dead by April, the number one story is Trump, the insurrection and the militarisation of Washington. COVID – more Americans dead in one year than US troops killed in the four years of World War II – is number two.

Washington’s political tragics are obsessed that Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law and that the domestic terrorists will strike in state capitols across the country. And they are awaiting shock Trump pardons on his way out.

Are these the darkest days since Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, provoking Southern states to secede from the United States and commence the Civil War? Is America coming apart?

Ken Burns, the superb documentarian and historian of America, from the Civil War to Vietnam, and its culture, from jazz to baseball, reminds us what Barbara Fields said about the legacy of the Civil War, which remains the greatest crisis in the country’s history: "It’s still to be fought, and regrettably it can still be lost."

Yes, even after Barack Obama was elected – twice – as president.

Yes, even after that man carrying the Confederate flag in the Capitol Rotunda and his cohorts failed to kill the Vice President and the Speaker of the House and stop the final constitutional act of certifying Biden’s election and Trump’s defeat.

Among Trump’s greatest pathologies in power was that he consistently sought to divide Americans from each other and capitalise on the seething tensions. On his watch, it was not Islamic terrorists that attacked the Capitol on 1/6. It was Americans. It was Americans who have murdered Jews in synagogues. It was American White Supremacist Nazis who marched in Charlottesville. It is the Proud Boys who stand by.

A year after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly shredded the text of Trump’s State of the Union message in the House chamber, she shredded Trump’s presidency by impeaching him even in his final days in a profound act of urgency to remove the man she termed "unhinged", "deranged" and a "clear and present danger" to the American people. Trump leaves office in disgrace, his approval plummeting, most believing he should be barred from future office.

This is an excerpt from Mr Wolpe's latest article in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Click below to read the full article.

VIDEO

Red Book | Blue Book

Did you miss our webinar on the USSC's Australian guide to the next US administration? The event discussed key policy issues on the road ahead for both the United States and Australia and featured Centre experts Ashley Townshend, Dr Stephen Kirchner, Dr Charles Edel, and Dr Gorana Grgic, in a conversation with CEO Professor Simon Jackman. Watch the full discussion HERE.

The full report Red Book / Blue Book: An Australian guide to the next US administration is available on our website for viewing and download and can be accessed HERE.

Catch this and other recent webinars on the USSC YouTube channel!

BY THE NUMBERS

Willingness to take COVID vaccine

Australians who think the virus is not dangerous but are likely to take a vaccine: 47% |
Americans who think the virus is extremely dangerous and are likely to take a vaccine: 46%

New polling data from the USSC which shows a stark difference in COVID-19 vaccine willingness between the United States and Australia is not the result of different assessment of dangers of the virus. The polling showed similar distribution in how dangerous Americans and Australians viewed the COVID-19 virus, but the number of Australians who viewed the virus as “not as all dangerous” were about as likely to take a vaccine (47 per cent) as Americans who view the virus as “extremely dangerous” (46 per cent). As the United States has passed 400,000 deaths from COVID-19 and grapples with the challenges of vaccine distribution, the poll results show the lack of public trust in the vaccine will be one of the greatest challenges of the year ahead.